
Holding an Auction to Sell Rhino Horn in South Africa - Red_Tarsius
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/wildlife-watch-rhino-horn-south-africa-auction/
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davidhyde
This is a fairly objective article but it would be nice if they offered some
evidence that legal trade makes illegal trade less feasible (if there is any).
When you see pictures of poor rhino on a horn farm your gut feel is to be
disgusted by that farmer. However, the simple laws of supply and demand may
put the baddies out of business. Very controversial but at least worth a good
think instead of a knee-jerk reaction.

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gehwartzen
One solution that I have always been supriesed hasn't been considered is
cosmetically destroying the horns of living rhinos while preserving their
function for the animal. By that I mean either chemically dying the horn some
unnatural color or carving/Branding "contraband" or something similar into the
outside. I would think that if you can alter the horn enough that it becomes
completely unappealing to the secondary market the poaching would stop.

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avar
Because aside from the logistics of constantly dying the ever-growing horn of
living wild animals, the market is in e.g. rhyno horn powder, so nobody cares
what they look like:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/why-
doe...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/why-does-a-rhino-
horn-cost-300-000-because-vietnam-thinks-it-cures-cancer-and-
hangovers/275881/)

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gambiting
Which only begs the question - how come the black market isn't absolutely
saturated with fake rhino horn powder? If it's just keratin, you could make
tons of it with little effort and sell it as rhino horn, no? People make fakes
of items with much much much less smaller profit margins, yet rhino horn trade
is not completely destroyed by fake product?

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ghostbrainalpha
Of course the market IS saturated by fake product....

But when you convince a large mass of people that there is value in your
"fake" Rhino Horn, that drives demand for the real thing.

This is why PETA is against even fake ivory keys for your piano. Because it
keeps perpetuating that ivory is valuable and desirable.

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davidhyde
And the fact that the South African government requires that these farmed
horns are dna tagged just gave them a way to identify the real thing. How
ironic. Unless this whole thing is designed to trace out the black market
distribution network..

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anonymousDan
A long but very interesting read on the gang of Irish travelers (gypsies)
behind a lot of the trade in Europe:
[https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/wd7mvy/rathkeale-
rovers-i...](https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/wd7mvy/rathkeale-rovers-irish-
traveller-gang-rhino-horn-chinese-artefact-theft)

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klondike_
This is possibly the best thing to happen to wild rhino populations. I don't
see how this is any different to farming cows, chicken, pigs or any other
animal.

There will always be demand for rhino horn, so it makes sense to satisfy that
demand in a way that does less damage to the wild population.

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devdoomari
> tranquilize & dehorn them

why don't anti-poachers use that approach? thought rhinos have to die before
extracting their horns...

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vezycash
And how will a hornless rhino protect itself against predators?

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davidhyde
Healthy adult rhinos have no predators (except humans). They are massive. They
use their horns to defend their young and their territories.

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animal531
You'd think so, but here's a video of for example a hippo vs a rhino without
(much of) a horn: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-
GX7o7hBc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW-GX7o7hBc)

Also when a pride of lions get hungry enough they'll go after anything, at
which point having a horn makes all the difference.

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OlivierKessler
Good thing that we will be able to list every single motherfucker who buy
those now it will be legal and tracked.

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gambiting
If it's fully legal to sell and buy and comes from farmed rhinos who are not
harmed during production, why would you call the buyers "motherfuckers"?

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vwcx
It is fully legal to do many things that are ethically awful.

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gambiting
Sure, buying meat from cows and pigs which are kept in horrendous conditions
is "ethically awful" but I don't call meat eaters(that includes myself)
motherfuckers. As far as I can see the only problem with rhino horn is that
people kill wild animals to get it - once rhino is farmed, there's no
difference between that and farming cows in my mind. In fact it's much better
since rhino farmers don't kill rhinos to get the horn.

