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No way can this be called conservation.
Saving rhinos by shooting them?
There has been a recent furore created by an article in the Times about a conservation organization dedicated to saving rhinos (appropriately called Save the Rhino) accepting funding from a hunting lobby or two.
Save the Rhino made a deal with the Safari Club International where funds from rhino hunts would be donated back to the London-based charity in order to continue their conservation efforts. Save the Rhino clearly acknowledges SCI as a partner on its website, and has been receiving funds since 2006. Save the Rhino and SCI seem to describe this as a win-win situation – the one needed funds, and the other was willing to extend them (after being rejected by some other organizations).
What is not discussed in the article is that many of those rhinos taken as trophies are not wild, but captive bred on game ranches. The trophy hunters will happily shoot such canned rhinos, and since bred white rhinos are quite docile animals, they will happily expose their vulnerable hearts to a high powered rifle from close range.
The Yellow Brick Road
According to Save the Rhino, their agreement to accept SCI funding was guided by their decision not to be sentiment-driven in matters of conservation and to encourage the sustainable use of wildlife. That, actually, is also one of the standpoints of WWF for example, and many other conservation bodies. It has become known as the Use Them Or Lose Them principle, and each organization must evaluate adopting such opinions based on the risks and benefits of sustainable hunting. Save the Rhino’s fundraising manager said it was one of the different means to keep money for conservation coming into the charity.
Some might call this cynical, grasping, abhorrent, despicable – and certainly not in line with the high ideals of a charity meant to be saving rhinos. However, as I stated above, Save the Rhino acknowledges the partnership with SCI on their website. There was no conspiracy to delude, and potential donors could clearly have made up their minds to support or not. After all, the partnership was formed in 2006! Patrons like Douglas Adams and Martina Navratilova can form their own opinions.
From there the story degenerates. SCI says by hunting rhinos, the proceeds are invested in anti-poaching, the African governments track the money and distribute it to rhino conservation, communities, sustainable development – and only males past their reproductive prime are hunted, allowing females to breed with younger and more virile specimes. The usual glowing menu that makes us realize we are not in Kansas anymore, and Save the Rhino should perhaps not have been tempted to go down the yellow brick road.
Born Free and rhinos
Interestingly, the Times article sought comment from Will Travers, CEO of Born Free. He responded as we would expect – said it was deeply depressing, unethical, deplorable.
However, Born Free has long been associated with the Shamwari Ranch near Port Elizabeth in South Africa. There, lions rescued from zoos and the like by BF are installed in big enclosures and given a “new” life. Shamwari is a showcase for BF, but interestingly also made headlines recently with rhinos. Shamwari was going to hold an auction of their “excess” rhinos on May 22, and accusations were made that the sales were going to include game ranches and professional hunters – in other words the Shamwari rhinos were going to feed the trophy hunting demand. Shamwari denies this, but has not provided a list of the buyers to be assessed by those who have concerns. Basically Shamwari says none of your concern, we are engaged in a business transaction, and you do not need to know; meanwhile we are conservationists first and foremost, and we will scutinize the buyers to ensure the rhinos are destined for safe locations.
Maybe they are right, but we think it would be very helpful if Mr Travers could look into these sales given his close association with Shamwari? And give us his opinion on the destinations of the rhinos sold?
Rhinos sell for lots of money. Minimum bids are 200,000 Rand for a white rhino and 400,000 Rand for a black rhino. This is nothing compared to the $50-60,000 per kilo their horns are worth in China. Perhaps Save the Rhino could explore the possibility of adding a conservation fee to the sale price and gaining some income that way? And then monitoring the rhinos after sale to determine they are not ending up on a wall in Texas or enlarging penises in China? Save the Rhino might thereby gain back some much-needed credibility.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7140128.ece
http://www.bornfree.org.uk/index.php?id=34&tx;_ttnews[tt_news]=520&cHash=4de48d6fef
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