
Poachers kill rhino for his horn at French zoo - yawz
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39194844
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mentos
Has anyone tried flooding the market for rhino horns with counterfeits?

edit: just searched, yes [http://www.snopes.com/3d-printed-rhino-horn-
developed/](http://www.snopes.com/3d-printed-rhino-horn-developed/)

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matthewmarkus
I'm the CEO of Pembient, one of the companies working on this problem [1]. I
would be happy to answer questions on what we're doing. Additionally, it is
worth pointing out that a lot of the initial research done on rhino horn usage
by conservation NGOs has been debunked by Yufang Gao, Karl Ammann, the
Wildlife Justice Commission [2], and others. That is, the use of rhino horn as
medicine is not what drives poaching.

[1] [https://sosv.com/why-pembient-is-confident-in-synthetic-
rhin...](https://sosv.com/why-pembient-is-confident-in-synthetic-rhino-horn/)

[2] [https://wildlifejustice.org/cn/overlooked-rhino-horn-
demand-...](https://wildlifejustice.org/cn/overlooked-rhino-horn-demand-
decorative-purposes-china/)

~~~
yawz
I'm really sorry to hear this side of the problem.

I truly hope that bioengineering the rhino horn will be successful in
preventing more damage.

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matthewmarkus
Thank you for your positive thoughts.

Despite this awful incident in France, there has been some good news on the
rhino front. In the five years before our announcement in 2015, rhino poaching
was growing an average of 49% or so year-over-year, significantly more than
the approximately 1% or less year-over-year growth it has experienced since
then. Obviously, correlation doesn't imply causation, but whatever brought
about the anomaly has bought the rhinos some time. In fact, South Africa, home
to the majority of African rhinos, recently announced its second year of
absolute declines in rhino poaching [1]. Hopefully, this trend will continue!

[1] [http://www.traffic.org/home/2017/2/27/south-africa-annual-
rh...](http://www.traffic.org/home/2017/2/27/south-africa-annual-rhino-
poaching-toll-falls-for-second-yea.html)

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cfv
It takes a special kind of asshole to do this to an animal in a western zoo. I
expect the culprits to pay a very steep price for their crime.

~~~
gpvos
The assholes who do this in Africa are equally bad. Nothing special about
them.

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msie
I wouldnt be surprised if the zoo had terrible security and no cameras. The
poachers left a second horn behind because they were supposedly scared off.

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overcast
This isn't ever going to stop until the ignorant stop believing in magical
potions to "cure" ailments.

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amelius
Perhaps somebody should initiate a randomized clinical trial to find out the
obvious, publish the results, and then it will stop.

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overcast
I don't think you understand the mentality of people who believe in these
practices. That's like providing a mountain of scientific evidence against
religions, to a devout follower.

~~~
nsxwolf
I think parent was sarcastic.

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yawz
I just can't believe this! Even zoos in a country like France aren't safe
anymore.

1Kg fetches $60K?!? Not only the ignorance part that drives me mad, but how
come so many men can be extremely obsessed about sexual performance?

I lose all hope in humanity in moments like these.

~~~
jbob2000
Wtf? Why even go to the trouble of killing a rhino for that price? Here, take
some ground up chicken bone, you won't know the difference.

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gambiting
I imagine the people who are willing to pay so much money DO actually care
about buying a real rhino horn. Ground up chicken bones might be identical,
but a mobster will pay for a real horn, not a bag of white powder that might
or might not be a real horn.

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restalis
If the demand is so high, how about farming? Or are there restrictions on the
kind of animals may be breed in farms?

Also, poaching can (and should, if you ask me) be addressed in a more serious
manner. How about starting at the buyer's market with enticing cash offers and
then hunt up the source of the illegal merchandise?

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rtkwe
> How about starting at the buyer's market with enticing cash offers and then
> hunt up the source of the illegal merchandise?

You're describing a basic sting which is far from a new idea and the poachers
aren't idiots when it comes to avoiding them.

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transfire
Can't they get Viagra or Cialis in Vietnam? And that's not a joke question.
And if they can get it, why isn't there a huge marketing campaign to make
people aware that Rhino horn doesn't do crap, but these drugs actually work.

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castis
The belief that they're using rhino horn as an aphrodisiac is made up by
western culture. The people consuming it do not believe this.

[https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/threats_to_rhino/poa...](https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/threats_to_rhino/poaching_for_rhino_horn)

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sand500
Then why are they consuming rhino horns? Actually curious.

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captn3m0
Excerpt from abstract of the paper[0] linked elsewhere in this thread:

>A media content analysis of Chinese (n = 332) and western newspapers (n =
166) from 2000 to 2014 revealed significant differences between perceptions of
rhino horn consumption. In Chinese media, rhino horn product acquisition was
most frequently reported for investment and collectible value (75%), artistic
value (40%), and medical value (29%). In contrast, western media alleged
consumption of rhino horn in China was mostly for their medical value (84%)

[0]:
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320716...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320716303044)

~~~
anigbrowl
This is an inaccurate understanding. The main difference between western and
Asian societies is the belief in medical value - about 0% in the west vs 29%
as documented here. It's not that the western media believes most Asian
consumers are desperate for medical ingredients, but that it is focused on
this point of difference.

That ivory has an aesthetic value is not in dispute; it has an aesthetic value
here int eh west too. People are fine with paying extra for antiques made with
the product of endangered species, and I'm to sure there's anything you can do
about that unless you try banning or heavily regulating the trad in antiques,
so that people aren't allowed to buy items made out of mahogany or ivory
because allowing such items to be the subject of commerce would drive demand
for those commodities now, as we are seeing. We don't talk about this because
we don't want to ban antiques and we don't have a good idea about how to deal
with the fact that their ongoing commercial existence creates demand for rare
goods.

Likewise critiquing investment and collectibility seems almost superfluous to
western media because such speculation is a basic mode of capitalism; it is so
natural to observe that the existence of human desire will lead to the
establishment of a market for the satisfaction of that desire that we take it
for granted, even when the market's demand for something with high profit
potential significantly outweighs consumers' demand for a particular good. As
with drugs and other contraband, you can have many intermediaries trading in
and pushing up the price proportionate to the distance consumers wish to put
between themselves and the suppliers (both to lessen criminal responsibility
and as a sort of Veblen good whose primary purpose is social signaling about
the owner's economic ability to waste money on it).

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transfire
First we need mandatory life sentences for poachers of endangered animals.
Secondly poachers caught in the act should be shot on site -- just like we
would if someone was caught in the middle of murdering other humans.

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khalilravanna
I know it's insane to equate a human life to an animal's but this makes me so
furious I want to agree. At the very least it seems we need to have
repercussions in place that are so grave that these people stop trying to
drive animals to extinction for their own stupid gains.

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anigbrowl
It's not insane. Other animals aren't as intelligent as human animals* but
they're sentient and have personality. It's perfectly OK to treat such people
who abuse or kill animals with the same disregard they show for others.

* the word animal derives from the same root as 'animated' \- we are animals because we can control our movements, n contrast to rooted entities like plants.

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jlebrech
if there a way we could make poachers more valuable that the rhino horn?

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Pica_soO
If those rhinos would be eating a arsenic rich diet- and arsenic would
aggregate in there horns.. would poachers check for that?

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XJOKOLAT
Fucking awful.

