Rhino Sanctuary for sale

[Animal Lover]

-The owner of a huge South African rhino conservation farm, the world's largest, said that it would be sold at auction in April (the auction ended on May 1st) because it could no longer afford to breed the endangered animals.
 
-Platinum Rhino, home to nearly 2,000 southern white rhinoceros spread across 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres) in the country's North West province, says it is "the largest of its kind in the world". Platinum Rhino is home to over 16 percent of South Africa's southern white rhino population according to the company, the subspecies of white rhino, is now considered endangered with about 20,000 individuals remaining, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

-Breeding rhinos is an expensive game," John Hume, Platinum's 81-year-old founder, told AFP, adding that he had been breeding rhinos "for 30 years without profit"."I've used all my life savings spending on that population of rhinos for 30 years. And I finally ran out of money," he said.

-The animal's horns consist mainly of hard keratin, the same substance found in human nails, but they are highly sought on black markets for use in traditional medicines in Asian countries such as China and Vietnam, where it is believed to cure cancer and other ailments.

-Preventing poaching took a huge monetary toll," said Hume, adding that it cost him up to half a million rand ($28,000) to breed a rhino up to the age of four years at his farm, which employs around 100 people and cost him about $10,000 for the day-to-day running of the sanctuary.

- Horns were preventively cut off as a way to dissuade poachers from killing the animals — and would be worth more than $500 million on the black market. Hume believes they should be sold to fund conservation projects, creating a legal market for them.


-I have the solution. But the rest of the world and the NGOs don't agree. And we are losing the war," lamented Hume angrily. "Unfortunately, on the black market, a rhino horn from a dead rhino is still worth more than a live rhino."
The horn is highly sought after on black markets, where the price per weight rivals that of gold and cocaine at an estimated $60,000 per kilogram.
Hume has argued for years that legal sales would flood the market and drive down the price, forcing poachers out of business.

-All you did was build up a black market and the criminals of the world, the Al Capones of the world, were very, very active when you tried to ban alcohol in America. Now we've done the same thing with rhino horn. It's created criminals. It's pushed the price through the roof. Bans have never worked."

-He said he is looking for a buyer "with a passion for conserving rhinos and the means to keep the breeding project going".

[stargatedalek]

Selling the horns would make a huge difference. This principle has already been proven with captive bred Asian arowana. But people are stubborn.

[BlueKrono]

It's also worked with the Chinese softshell turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) as turtle farming has in a small measure helped sate the Chinese appetite for turtle. I see no reason why all endangered animals shouldn't be bred as much as possible in captivity.

[Gwangi]

It worked for American alligators too. They're farmed which means the wild population is generally left alone. I support captive breeding, ecotourism, and even trophy hunting as a means to encourage conservation. People are more likely to want to preserve something if it is profitable. It might be unfortunate but it's reality.

I watched a Dav Kaufman video recently about ball pythons. He went to Africa to see these popular pet snakes in the wild. They used to be caught from the wild for the pet trade. That seems like a bad thing but it gave the locals a reason to preserve the snake and its habitat...profit. Now that ball pythons are almost entirely captive bred they're just eating them instead. I'm not really in support of taking animals from the wild for the pet trade but it goes to show you that these things are far more complex than they appear on the surface.

[Saarlooswolfhound]

It worked for American alligators too. They're farmed which means the wild population is generally left alone. I support captive breeding, ecotourism, and even trophy hunting as a means to encourage conservation. People are more likely to want to preserve something if it is profitable. It might be unfortunate but it's reality.

I watched a Dav Kaufman video recently about ball pythons. He went to Africa to see these popular pet snakes in the wild. They used to be caught from the wild for the pet trade. That seems like a bad thing but it gave the locals a reason to preserve the snake and its habitat...profit. Now that ball pythons are almost entirely captive bred they're just eating them instead. I'm not really in support of taking animals from the wild for the pet trade but it goes to show you that these things are far more complex than they appear on the surface.

This sadly is the truth. Brought to the front of my mind with a friend's announcement that they have a litter of red wolf pups just born (she works for a small zoo part of the SAFE program). I haven't been keeping up on the literature for this species because its been all bad news for years but coming back to it now, its still a conservation concern. There are lots of issues that arise but what it boils down to... is what value can we get the public to see in these animals to make them WORTH protecting? Sad, but true.

[NSD Bashe]

Still seems unfair for the rhinos to have their horns cut off because they were too appealing to human poachers otherwise.  I wonder if instead there could be a way to clone that same material in a lab and flood the market with that instead

[Saarlooswolfhound]

Still seems unfair for the rhinos to have their horns cut off because they were too appealing to human poachers otherwise.  I wonder if instead there could be a way to clone that same material in a lab and flood the market with that instead

I read something about this, similar to 3D printing it... and then flooding the market. But that was probably 2-3 years ago that I read that.

[BlueKrono]

It worked for American alligators too. They're farmed which means the wild population is generally left alone. I support captive breeding, ecotourism, and even trophy hunting as a means to encourage conservation. People are more likely to want to preserve something if it is profitable. It might be unfortunate but it's reality.

I watched a Dav Kaufman video recently about ball pythons. He went to Africa to see these popular pet snakes in the wild. They used to be caught from the wild for the pet trade. That seems like a bad thing but it gave the locals a reason to preserve the snake and its habitat...profit. Now that ball pythons are almost entirely captive bred they're just eating them instead. I'm not really in support of taking animals from the wild for the pet trade but it goes to show you that these things are far more complex than they appear on the surface.

Ha, Dav's a friend of mine. I took over the reigns of the vice-presidency of the MN Herpetological Society from him. Good guy.

[Gwangi]

It worked for American alligators too. They're farmed which means the wild population is generally left alone. I support captive breeding, ecotourism, and even trophy hunting as a means to encourage conservation. People are more likely to want to preserve something if it is profitable. It might be unfortunate but it's reality.

I watched a Dav Kaufman video recently about ball pythons. He went to Africa to see these popular pet snakes in the wild. They used to be caught from the wild for the pet trade. That seems like a bad thing but it gave the locals a reason to preserve the snake and its habitat...profit. Now that ball pythons are almost entirely captive bred they're just eating them instead. I'm not really in support of taking animals from the wild for the pet trade but it goes to show you that these things are far more complex than they appear on the surface.

Ha, Dav's a friend of mine. I took over the reigns of the vice-presidency of the MN Herpetological Society from him. Good guy.

I figured someone here would at least recognize the name. Hard to be into reptiles and not know who Dav Kaufman is.

[Animal Lover]

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