Cruel but “necessary”: Can cutting off rhino horns — and selling them — help save rhinos?

Johan Maris Stains A. unicorn From a helicopter and shoot it with quiet calm. It will last five minutes before the rhinoceros decrease. The team is ready on the floor to make sure that the animal is in a good position when it loses consciousness. The rhinoceros is so enormous that if he is asleep on his legs, blood flow can be cut off, which leads to circulatory problems and a major injury.

When Maris approaches the unconscious rhinoceros, he covers his eyes to protect them and then used with a saw to cut his horns, to about 10 centimeters, which avoids cutting live tissues and causing bleeding from the century so as not to cut live tissues, which may cause a recovery.

No, Maris is not a poacher – The exact opposite. He is a veterinarian in South Africa who hopes to save these rare and endangered animals from fishermen. After the process is completed, his team carefully brings together the remaining residues of the remains – even those that may be valuable for beneficiaries who are eager to sell a rhinoceric century on the black market.

It may seem that the rhinoceros to save them is deviated. However, it has become more common in recent decades, in a recent attempt to save the population from the black and white in South Africa and the surrounding countries, where overfishing threatens their survival. Although Dehorning has been linked to some behavioral changes in the unicorn, it has also been shown to keep them alive.

The conservation specialists say they hate the distortion of these beans, whose wonderful pods are an integral part of their existence. But the alternative to a person like Marais, the founder of the non -profit organization Save the survivorsIt is dedicated to the treatment of wild wildlife, worse. Sometimes, he told a salon, he had to tend to the rhinoceros who were shot and severely hit, “sometimes with half of their faces they were hacked while they were still alive.”

In the face of this option, Maris said in an interview over the phone: “You have to decide which of the necessary evils that you go.

Wildlife managers began to get rid of the unicorn in 1989, when the illegal wildlife trade rose, which affects It drew greatly in South Africa And neighboring countries. Many have stopped removing unicorn in subsequent years when residents began to recover, but in 2014, More one -century killing In the illegal wildlife trade in any previous year. Since then, many gardens and reserves have returned to this practice.

There is less than 23,000 unicorn in the wilderness and around it 400 annually is killed In recent years. Although there are some signs that The pace of unjust hunting slows downResearch indicates that this may have a fewer number The rhinoceros available to Al -Hayyah.

on 80 % of the remaining unicorn in the world Living in South Africa, which has become a center for the illegal wildlife trade that involves these types. The reasons behind their occurrence are numerous and complex. A rhinoceric horn is It is sold for tens of thousands of dollars per kilogramAnd the case symbol is seen in parts of the world. Many regions affected by trade have high levels of inequality and poverty, and Corruption makes law enforcement difficult.

“South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world, and in many ways, the hunting crisis other than this is one of the symptoms of inequality,” said Timothy Kwiber, a researcher at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa. The poor “can be recruited by these criminal unions” who come to an area and offer overfishing as a “fast way to get out of poverty”.

A study by Koyber was recently published in sciences I found that Dehorning Rhinos was associated with a 78 % reduction in overfishing between 2017 and 2023 through 11 reserves in South Africa, where about a quarter -century in Africa was residing at the beginning of the study period.

“Millions of dollars have been spent on domains, dogs, cameras, helicopters, warnings and luxury fences, none of them bend the curve or put a big way to reduce overfishing,” said Koyber. “Dehorning has been continued as an almost another effort, but it is too late-regardless of possible ethical concerns-it is a very logical and direct means” to nullify illegal trade in a rhinoceros century.

In the area that Keper studied, $ 74 million was spent to try to reduce the overfishing between 2017 and 2023, but 1985 rhinoceros is still killed by their centuries.

Questions about the long -term effects of unicorn disagreement remain. Their pods are made of keratin, such as human nails, and the procedure is not believed. However, one Ticket It was published in 2023 that although the hiking apparently guarantees larger survival rates between the black rhinoceros, it was also associated with an almost 50 % reduction in habitats.

“This tells you that after she calmed an animal, they know that they no longer have a horn anymore,” Maris said. “It is clear that they do not want to walk in a position in which they cannot defend themselves.”

Another source of concern is that getting rid of some unicorn and not others will rush to hunt to areas where unicorn is not removed. Lucy Cheese, the black environment scientist in South Africa, said: Wildlife Law. The recent study in science stated that more than 100 unicorn is still boiled during the period concerned, even after it was ignored.

Dehorning is also temporary by design: within about 18 months, a unicorn horn will grow. Each cage costs about $ 600, an important amount in the African context, although this represents a little more than 1 percent of the entire budget to protect the rhinoceros, and other security measures more expensive.

As the costs of preserving the rhinoceros continue, many wildlife managers sell their single -century to other reserves, which reduced the natural range of animals. In general, Maris said, it is more healthy for the unicorn if they are It allows to wander naturally Instead of removing them. He added that reducing its scope could have effects on the estuary on the entire ecosystem.

“We not only lose the numbers of the unicorn, but we also lose habitats,” Maris said. When the habitats are lost, he continued, “You lose the biological diversity that suits with it, all the small insects, the album that nests in grass, ants, worms and grass itself.”

In the end, Dehorning is unlikely a long -term solution for unicorn residents. In fact, most of the proposed solutions aimed at reducing overfishing on a single -century on the unicorn – the side of the symptom of the problem, can say – instead of dealing with the tremendous demand. “I don’t know if there is a long -term solution until you deal with demand and poverty,” Shimus said.

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Specialists discuss the preservation of what to do with the rhinoceros centuries. Thousands of them are now in storage facilities in South AfricaWith some people, they argue that It must be burned To avoid the clear risks of theft, keep them away from the black market. Others suggested that the centuries be sold in this very black market, and perhaps The codification of this trade can help save the unicorn.

Maris believes that it is worth trying. He says that the money that checks these sales can be reinforced into the conservative projects designed to help the unicorn. Maris said that the owner of the property can use the money from selling pods “because more people are on his property that can carry out security patrols, upgrade his walls, or buy a helicopter to conduct monitoring.” “If all our fears come true and make the problem actually worse, then we stop. But at least we must try it and see. Perhaps, perhaps, will make a difference.”