Rhino Poaching

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I came across a very interesting article in Scientific American today concerning one person’s proposed solution to end the poaching of rhinoceroses. I’ll discuss his proposal in a minute, but first I would like to share a little bit of information concerning poaching in general.

According to the United Nations as well as many nature and wildlife organizations, rhino poaching has been rising over the past few years. Poachers are only after the horns. Some of them are sent to East Asia, particularly China and Vietnam, for use in traditional medicine; the rest are sent to some countries in the Middle East, where people make traditional dagger holders with them.

Earlier this year, members of CITES, also known as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, met in Geneva to discuss the poaching of rhinos, along with other topics concerning wildlife management.

According to the New York Times:

The illegal trade that appears to be driving the poaching “includes fraudulent applications for Cites documents, abuse of legal trophy hunting and the use of couriers smuggling horns from Southern Africa to Far East Asia”, the organization added.

South Africa, which has more rhinos than any other African country, is thought to be the source of most of the illegal horns. In 2010, 333 rhinos were killed, nearly triple the 2009 toll, and the 2011 figures look to be as bad or worse. Poachers affiliated with organized criminal gangs sometimes hunt by helicopter with automatic weapons.

The same article also points out one of the most important facts about poaching: this is happening because poachers get an extraordinary price for horns.

The horns can be worth as much as 200,000 euros, or $290,000, Europol said.

South Africa is trying to crack down. Nine poachers have been killed this year by rangers. From the Huffington Post, discussing what’s happening in Kenya:

Wildlife agents in Kenya undergo paramilitary training and hunt down suspected poachers using battlefield tactics. In December 2009, poachers shot and killed a Kenya Wildlife Service ranger. In response, wildlife agents set up an ambush of the suspects and killed two of them. Armed wildlife agents walk Kenya’s national parks on foot to hunt for poachers.

Kenyan wildlife agents shot and killed five poachers in November, the highest ever in one month.

So, aside from nations taking a military or policing role toward poachers, one man has proposed his own solution, getting back to that Scientific American article I mentioned earlier.

Ed Hern, who owns Rhino and Lion Nature Preserve in Johannesburg, has said that we should poison the rhino horns to deter poachers.

The horns of rhinos are made of keratin, which is the same material that human fingernails are made out of, so according to Hern the poison, cyanide, will not hurt the rhinos.

Via Scientific American:

“The aim would be to kill, or make seriously ill anyone who consumes the horn,” Hern told Sky News. He also hopes this could help disrupt the market for illegal rhino horns. “If someone in China eats it and gets violently sick, they are not going to buy it again,” he said.

I pondered over this solution this afternoon and here are a few of my thoughts. My first reaction was that if poisoning the horns does not hurt the rhino in any way then it may indeed be a good solution. In fact, even the knowledge that this is happening even to a few groups of rhinos may be enough to ward off some poachers. Afterall, no one is going to want to use horns infused with cyanide for medicine. Also, demand will probably decrease greatly.

My second reaction is of a more Buddhist perspective: is it ethical to possibly kill people as a way to stop poaching? Or is there a better approach? If someone illegally buys a poisoned horn to use in medicinal ways, he or she will undoubtedly become ill and maybe even die. Will the people buying the horns know about the possibility of poisonings? I doubt the poachers will tell their customers out of fear of losing their profits.

Overall, I think this could be a significant way to greatly reduce the number of rhinos being poached for their horns. I also think, if this plan is indeed put into effect, that the United Nations and environmental organizations should publicize it greatly. I have a feeling that if people think it’s such a danger to their health, they will no longer be willing to pay people to poach.

Reduce demand, reduce poaching. Perhaps it’s as simple as that.

What do you think?

Screw you again, PETA

Once again PETA has released a new State of the Union address video, and once again, they show just how great they are at objectifying women. Here it is:

In November 2009, Vegans of Color found a Craigslist posting looking for an “African American or Mixed-Race Vegan Actor Needed for PETA Video.” There was some discussion in the comments of that blog about whether it was a hoax or not. Well, we got our answer.

In the ad looking for an actor to play of the role, they wanted each applicant to send them a full-body photo of herself. I’m sure many agencies looking for actors do this, but it made me think about how PETA only uses women who are model-thin and conventionally beautiful. I’ve never seen a PETA ad containing nudity that used a woman who is more representative of real women. And while we’re talking about PETA and their role in unhealthy body image, here’s an ad from 2000 that still pisses me off:

One of the reasons I do not support PETA is that they do little to help animals. Their main mission seems to be to draw attention to themselves and do stupid publicity stunts, some of which have nothing to do with animals. George Clooney tofu anyone?

And… PETA hates fat people, as they showed in this billboard.

The animal rights movement could do just fine without PETA. Hell, we could probably do even better, since most non-vegs usually associate vegetarianism and veganism with crazy, ridiculous stunts because PETA receives so much publicity.

Scientist at Research Lab Fired

Guy Grimsley, a 65 year old scientist working for a research lab in Nevada that does testing on animals was fired because he presentened an opposition to “cruel and inhumane mistreatment” of the 32 monkey test subjects.

I love when people working in an industry such as animal testing or factory farming come out against mistreatment of animals, such as the Mad Cowboy. But this is a little different. Grimsley was upset that the 32 monkeys died in the lab because of overheating, which was definitely terrible. However, he was not opposed to the actual testing of the animals, which produces SO much unnecessary suffering.

So what do you think?

Heartbreaking Pictures of Whale Slaughter

Yes, this is such a large slaughter that the water actually turns red

Over at earthfirst.com (yay! for Earth First!), there are some striking and heartbreaking photographs of an annual whale slaugher in the Faroe Islands, Denmark. From the site:

“Ironically, this practice, called grindadráp, is diminishing the population of 5,000 islanders. Many of them get sick and die from high mercury levels in the whales. Mentally retarded children are reportedly being born at alarmingly high rates.”

Please head over to Earth First’s blog and check it out. The pictures are hard to look at but a good example of how some tradition needs to be chucked out.

UN: Eat less meat

According to Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, people should eat vegetarian at least one day per week in order to have a positive effect on the outcome of global warming. He also says that this is just a starting point and that people should continue to decrease their meat consumption. Pachauri suggests that meat consumption reduction is the quickest way of changing what could be a bleak future for all of us and our future generations. “In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity. Give up meat for one day initially, and decrease it from there.

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri

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According to the UK’s Guardian, “His comments are the most controversial advice yet provided by the panel on how individuals can help tackle gobal warming.” The question we as vegans should be asking is why this is such a controversial suggestion. Environmentalists tend to take any other eco-advice as sound and quickly jump on the wagon. However, when it comes to the correlation between meat consumption and the state of this planet, these same “environmentalists” shuffle their feet like guilty children. They don’t want to acknowledge how transparent this issue is.

Unexpectedly, the meat industry is not happy with Pachauri’s comments. You see, the environmental degradation caused by the meat industry is actually our fault. From the Guardian:

“Chris Lamb, head of marketing for pig industry group BPEX, said the meat industry had been unfairly targeted and was working hard to find out which activities had the biggest environmental impact and reduce those. Some ideas were contradictory, he said – for example, one solution to emissions from livestock was to keep them indoors, but this would damage animal welfare.”

So, according to at least this representative of the meat industry (and I’m sure he’s not the only one peddling this information), we either have to choose saving our world from climate change, or we can treat animals kindly and burn on a much warmer Earth.

Or, as a third choice, we can do as Dr. Pachauri asks, and lower our meat reduction. If someone absolutely has to have meat, choose local free-range. (I know, a vegan supporting free range meat? If someone’s going to eat meat, I’d much rather it be from an animal that has at least been outside.) See Mr. Lamb, we can have both a clean planet and well-treated animals.