We Are Going To Lose Our Rhinos

Escalating levels of poaching and illegal trade in rhino horns are seriously undermining rhino conservation efforts, putting the survival of these species at risk – according to a report by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and TRAFFIC.

The report examines the conservation status and trade in African and Asian rhino species.

“The findings of the report are alarming,” says Tom Milliken, a rhino expert from TRAFFIC. “Today, rhino poaching and illegal horn trade are at their highest levels in over 20 years, threatening to reverse years of conservation effort, particularly in Africa. There is no doubt that rhino species are facing a serious crisis.”

According to the report, by the beginning of 2011 there were 20,165 White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) and 4,880 Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) in Africa. However, at least 1,997 rhinos were poached between 2006 and September 2012 and over 4,000 rhino horns have been illegally exported from Africa since 2009, with an estimated 92% of these coming from rhinos specifically killed to obtain their horn.
South Africa, home to 83% of Africa’s rhinos and 73% of all wild rhinos worldwide, is the principal source of rhino horns in illegal trade. A record 668 rhinos were poached there in 2012, according to official government figures released in January 2013.
Illegal trade in rhino horns involves highly organised, mobile and well-financed criminal groups, mainly composed of Asian nationals based in Africa. These networks have recruited pseudo-hunters including Vietnamese citizens, Thai prostitutes and proxy hunters from the Czech Republic and Poland to obtain rhino horns in South Africa on the pretence of trophy hunts for illegal commercial trade. Pseudo-hunting has significantly reduced as a result of a decision to prevent nationals of Viet Nam from obtaining hunting licenses and changes to South African law in April 2012. However, there remains a continued need to ensure that only bona fide hunters are granted permits, according to the report.

“Rhinos are killed for their horns, which are seen as highly desirable status symbols in parts of Asia, notably Viet Nam, but also increasingly in China,” says Bibhab Kumar Talukdar, Chair of IUCN Species Survival Commission’s (SSC) Asian Rhino Specialist Group. “Horns are also increasingly used for non-traditional purposes such as hangover cure and body detoxifier, especially in Viet Nam.”

In Asia, although conservation action in Nepal and India has resulted in increased numbers of the Greater One-horned Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), the situation in Indonesia and Malaysia remains serious for the world’s two rarest rhino species— the Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) and the Javan Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus). The Javan Rhinoceros, with only around 35 to 45 surviving individuals, is confined to a single park in Indonesia after the last animal of its Indochinese subspecies, Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus, was found dead, its horn removed, in Viet Nam in 2010. The report calls for enhanced protection and biological management of the remaining Sumatran and Javan Rhinoceros to prevent their extinction.

Thefts of rhino horns from museums and zoos have increased worldwide, creating the need for improved law enforcement, monitoring and enhanced information management with regards to rhino numbers, sales and translocations, the report finds.
“Trade in rhino horns is a global problem that needs to be addressed by the international community by putting pressure on those countries that are driving illegal trade in rhino horn and those with inadequate wildlife legislation, such as Mozambique,” says Richard Emslie, from IUCN SSC African Rhino Specialist Group. “At the same time, increased poaching is negatively affecting rhino conservation incentives and budgets, threatening future rhino population growth.”

The report was compiled by the IUCN SSC African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups and TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. It was mandated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and aims to inform the rhino horn debate at the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES, taking place in March 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand.


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Take Care of your Zoo Rhinos.

PROTECT

Elephants Killed For Christ

 

 

Blood Ivory

Ivory Worship

Thousands of elephants die each year so that their tusks can be carved into religious objects. Can the slaughter be stopped?

IN JANUARY 2012 A HUNDRED RAIDERS ON HORSEBACK CHARGED OUT OF CHAD INTO CAMEROON’S BOUBA NDJIDAH NATIONAL PARK, SLAUGHTERING HUNDREDS OF ELEPHANTS—entire families—in one of the worst concentrated killings since a global ivory trade ban was adopted in 1989. Carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, they dispatched the elephants with a military precision reminiscent of a 2006 butchering outside Chad’s Zakouma National Park. And then some stopped to pray to Allah. Seen from the ground, each of the bloated elephant carcasses is a monument to human greed. Elephant poaching levels are currently at their worst in a decade, and seizures of illegal ivory are at their highest level in years. From the air too the scattered bodies present a senseless crime scene—you can see which animals fled, which mothers tried to protect their young, how one terrified herd of 50 went down together, the latest of the tens of thousands of elephants killed across Africa each year. Seen from higher still, from the vantage of history, this killing field is not new at all. It is timeless, and it is now.
THE PHILIPPINES CONNECTION
In an overfilled church Monsignor Cristobal Garcia, one of the best known ivory collectors in the Philippines, leads an unusual rite honoring the nation’s most important religious icon, the Santo Niño de Cebu (Holy Child of Cebu). The ceremony, which he conducts annually on Cebu, is called the Hubo, from a Cebuano word meaning “to undress.” Several altar boys work together to disrobe a small wooden statue of Christ dressed as a king, a replica of an icon devotees believe Ferdinand Magellan brought to the island in 1521. They remove its small crown, red cape, and tiny boots, and strip off its surprisingly layered underwear. Then the monsignor takes the icon, while altar boys conceal it with a little white towel, and dunks it in several barrels of water, creating his church’s holy water for the year, to be sold outside.
Garcia is a fleshy man with a lazy left eye and bad knees. In the mid-1980s, according to a 2005 report in the Dallas Morning News and a related lawsuit, Garcia, while serving as a priest at St. Dominic’s of Los Angeles, California, sexually abused an altar boy in his early teens and was dismissed. Back in the Philippines, he was promoted to monsignor and made chairman of Cebu’s Archdiocesan Commission on Worship. That made him head of protocol for the country’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, a flock of nearly four million people in a country of 75 million Roman Catholics, the world’s third largest Catholic population. Garcia is known beyond Cebu. Pope John Paul II blessed his Santo Niño during Garcia’s visit to the pope’s summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, in 1990. Recently Garcia helped direct the installation of Cebu’s newest archbishop in a cathedral filled with Catholic leaders, including 400 priests and 70 bishops, among them the Vatican’s ambassador. Garcia is so well known that to find his church, the Society of the Angels of Peace, I need only roll down my window and ask, “Monsignor Cris?” to be pointed toward his walled compound.
Some Filipinos believe the Santo Niño de Cebu is Christ himself. Sixteenth-century Spaniards declared the icon to be miraculous and used it to convert the nation, making this single wooden statue, housed today behind bulletproof glass in Cebu’s Basilica Minore del Santo Niño, the root from which all Filipino Catholicism has grown. Earlier this year a local priest was asked to resign after allegedly advising his parishioners that the Santo Niño and images of the Virgin Mary and other saints were merely statues made of wood and cement.
“If you are not devoted to the Santo Niño, you are not a true Filipino,” says Father Vicente Lina, Jr. (Father Jay), director of the Diocesan Museum of Malolos. “Every Filipino has a Santo Niño, even those living under the bridge.”
Each January some two million faithful converge on Cebu to walk for hours in procession with the Santo Niño de Cebu. Most carry miniature Santo Niño icons made of fiberglass or wood. Many believe that what

Read More: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/10/ivory/christy-text

Aspinall foundation calls for more UK government support to protect the rhino from poachers

Photo By: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmy-jay/4817270758/

Aspinall foundation calls for more UK government support to protect the rhino from poachers

More than 70 African rhinos have been slaughtered this year in South Africa just for their horns and The Aspinall Foundation has called on the British government to act.

The Aspinall Foundation, which runs wild animal parks at Port Lympne and Howletts in east Kent, says well-equipped, crime syndicates have killed more than 800 African rhinos in the past three years. And the most serious poaching upsurge in South Africa , Zimbabwe and Kenya.

There are only 4,840 Black Rhinos left in the world, whilst White Rhinoshave a population of 20,150. Population numbers are increasing slowly thanks to conservation efforts, but efforts will be wasted if the killing continues.

South Africa alone lost 333 rhinos last year and so far this year has lost more than 70. Most rhino horns leaving Africa are destined for SE Asian medicinal markets, that are believed to be driving the poaching epidemic.

An Aspinall spokesman told this news website: "With almost one rhino a day being lost to poaching, The Aspinall Foundation are adding their voice to the growing campaign of awareness which is urging governments and individuals to address this issue and support the charities that protect them."

The Aspinall Foundation is a leading conservation charity dedicated to keeping John Aspinall’s innovative conservation ethos alive- leading the way through education, captive breeding and reintroduction.

It has projects in other countries, including in Java, Madagascar and Africa. Working in conjunction with its Kent wild animal Parks, Howletts and Port Lympne, The Aspinall Foundation has so far returned to protected areas of the wild Przewalski's horses, Black rhino, Cape buffalo, Burmese pythons and Western lowland gorillas.

The foundation’s Port Lympne and Howletts Wild Animal Parks in Kent were set up by the late John Aspinall to be centres of excellence for animal husbandry within which to protect and breed threatened species, with a view to returning them to the wild wherever possible.

Howletts and Port Lympne have 19 Eastern Black rhinos, one of the four subspecies of Black rhino. The collection is the largest breeding herd of Black rhino outside of Africa and has bred an astounding 32 calves to date and five have been returned to the wild in Africa. The latest birth was a male born in January at Port Lympne.

Animal Director at The Aspinall Foundation’s Port Lympne Wild Animal Park , Adrian Harland, said today: "Now more than ever breeding programmes like ours play a crucial role in the ongoing survival of Black rhino. Every succesful birth at our parks bolsters the numbers of this fragile species and helps us work towards reintroducing these animals back into protected areas of the wild. All these efforts are just a drop in the ocean however if poaching continues at this unprecedented rate. We need the international community to sit up and listen to these latest shocking reports before it is too late."

Dr. Richard Emslie, scientific officer for the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s (SSC) African Rhino Specialist Group (AfRSG), said: "Although good biological management and anti-poaching efforts have led to modest population gains for both species of African rhino, we are still very concerned about the increasing involvement of organized criminal poaching networks, and that, unless the rapid escalation in poaching in recent years can be halted, continental rhino numbers could once again start to decline,"

In particular, Vietnamese nationals have been repeatedly implicated in rhino crimes in South Africa .

Black Rhinos (Diceros bicornis) currently number 4,840 (up from 4,240 in 2007), whilst White Rhinos (Ceratotherium simum



Read Full Article HERE Aspinall foundation calls for more UK government support to protect the rhino from poachers

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51 South African Rhinoceros killed by poachers since January 2011

Photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/riot/513926866/

This is horrible news. This is 51 animals which the authorities are aware of. Then there are the other countries where there is less protection. A frightening statistic.

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Statement: DoE: Rhino poaching a cause for concern

The Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Ms Edna Molewa, has called for more public involvement in the efforts to reduce rhino poaching in the country.

Minister Molewa announced that rhino poaching continues to increase at an alarming rate. She also took the opportunity to congratulate the members of the National Wildlife Crime Reaction Unit (NWCRU) for their escalating number of arrests of suspected poachers and related criminals.

Since January 2011, a total of 51 rhinos have been poached across the country.
The figures are constituted as follows:
Kruger National Park: 33
Gauteng: 0

Read More HERE

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Rhino Conservation and Poaching Punishments

International Spotlight: Zimbabwe Rhino Poaching Court Case a Turning Point?


Conservationists concerned with inconsistent sentencing of poachers

Zimbabwe– This month, Tichaona Mutyairi, a Zimbabwe rhino poacher with the infamous Mazhongwe gang, was sentenced to 17 years in jail after being captured during an exchange of gunfire with the police in October 2009. Although a regional court in the town of Masvingo took a strict stance, punishing the poacher to the full extent of Zimbabwe ’s wildlife and firearm laws, this sentence remains a rare occurrence among captured poachers.

Photo By: http://www.flickr.com/photos/38485387@N02/3580704347/

International conservationists are watching the Mutyairi case given the highly varied outcomes in several court cases against members of rhino poaching gangs that have recently been finalized or are still underway.

In previous court cases, many poachers have been released from jail escaping punishment instead of facing strong, consistent sentences that would deter them from hunting down Zimbabwe 's remaining rhinos.

“After so much conservation effort and funding has been ploughed into rhino protection in Zimbabwe , we look to the Zimbabwean authorities to hold up their side of our shared commitment to conserve rhinos,” said Dr. Susie Ellis, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation. “If strict sentences continue to be imposed on poachers, there may finally be a chance that the poachers will start to back off from their all-out assault on Zimbabwe ’s remaining rhinos”.

These court rulings will be put under the international spotlight when Zimbabwe’s track record of rhino conservation is assessed at the March conference of parties to the International Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). By then, it may be clear if Mutyairi’s recent case is a turning point in the conservation battle or is merely false hope that Zimbabwe ’s law-enforcement officers and court officials have resolved to confront the poaching menace.




The temptation to poach rhinos has been stimulated by weak levels of law enforcement in Zimbabwe . Since January 2008, approximately 40 rhino poachers have been arrested, often through the efforts of private rhino custodians. However, fewer than five of the arrested poachers have actually been convicted for their crimes, which include use of illegal firearms and the slaughtering of the endangered rhino species.

In one failed court case which conservationists found particularly disturbing, a Zimbabwean High Court judge granted bail to a group of poachers who were found with five automatic assault rifles and admitted to killing seventeen rhinos. This ruling overturned another ruling in a more junior court case in which captured gang members were released from jail until sentencing giving them the opportunity to immediately abscond. The same process was followed shortly afterwards in a similar case, allowing two Mazhongwe gang members to vanish into thin air instead of remaining in jail.

While conservationists applaud the professional action of the Masvingo court and the police investigators who built the case against Mutyairi, they worry his lawyer will follow the route of appealing to another court. The financial power of poaching syndicates and the legal antics that have disrupted other convictions could still come into play in this process.

According to the Lowveld Rhino Trust, which monitors and manages rhinos in southern Zimbabwe , approximately 130 rhinos were poached for their horns between 2008 and 2009. The Mazhongwe poaching gang, led by brothers “Big Sam” and Ishmael, are responsible for at least a quarter of these losses. Rhinos are killed for the sole intention of selling their horns on the black market, which are used in traditional Asian medicine to reduce fever. The willingness of emboldened poachers such as the Mazhongwe gang to fire upon law enforcement patrols that interfere with their hunt in Zimbabwe has resulted in a literal war.

“The illicit horn deals provide a relatively good income for opportunists like the Mazhongwe gang trying to survive in Zimbabwe ’s collapsed economy,” said Ellis. “We are continuing our efforts to put pressure on the Zimbabwean government to keep rhino poaching at bay. Only time will tell how the Zimbabwean courts will handle prosecuting future rhino poachers.”

Rhino poaching remains a high-stakes, organized endeavor in Zimbabwe undertaken by everyone from government officials and foreign diplomats to gangs of violent criminals.


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About the International Rhino Foundation



The International Rhino Foundation is a global not-for-profit organization dedicated to the survival of the world’s rhino species through conservation and research, and increasing



awareness about the plight of the rhino. To learn more about the IRF or make a direct contribution, visit http://www.rhinos-irf.org/

Rhino Poaching Is On The Increase

Poaching of rhinos rising globally: Report

Poaching of rhino is on the rise globally, according to a report recently published by International Union for the Nature Conservation (IUCN) and TRAFFIC International. The poaching of the endangered animal in Nepal is also increasing at an alarming rate, with more than a dozen rhinos poached this year.




Greater one-horned, lesser one-horned, Sumatran, black rhino and white rhino are scattered in Africa and Asia. Nepal boasts of greater one-horned rhino.



The greater one-horned rhino (rhinoceros unicornis) is currently listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. There were 612 greater one-horned rhinos in 2000 in Nepal but the number fell to 444 in 2008.



Thirteen African countries are home to the black and white rhino species, with a total population of 21,700. According to the report, 470 white and black rhinos have been poached between 2006 and 2009, with 69 per cent shot dead.



In Asia, targeted poaching seems restricted to greater one-horned rhino. In Nepal, between mid-1999 and mid-2007, more than 149 rhinos were reportedly poached, with severe effects on rhino number in Chitwan and Bardia national parks, where 52 per cent and 86 per cent deaths were attributed to poaching. While rhinos continue to decline in Bardia, Chitwan’s numbers are now increasing following improved political stability, states the report.



The greater one-horned rhino inhabits in Nepal and India only. The poaching is rampant in India too. The report says, in India, most rhino poaching has occurred in Kaziranga NP, with 20 killed in 2007, 10 in 2008 and seven in 2009.



The report states the



Javan rhino (rhinoceros sondaicus) is now critically endangered. Ujung



Kulon NP in west Java, Indonesia currently conserves between 38-44 rhinos.



“The resurgence of rhino horn trade in Vietnam, possibly China and other parts of Asia is of paramount concern, but remains poorly documented, especially the extent of usage and trade in end-use markets in Asia,” states the report. It pointed Kathmandu as the transit for the trade of horns


 












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In transit or destination, Delhi is poachers’ capital

In transit or destination, Delhi is poachers’ capital

There is little connection between an ultraviolet-ray light sourced from Australia and clumps of fish meat with bones carefully picked clean, but together the two form a perfect gift for the Capital’s unusual guests — two baby crocodiles.


Poached from Tamil Nadu’s Hogenakkal Falls and rescued from the poacher’s luggage at Delhi’s Nizamuddin Railway Station, the baby crocodiles are being taken care of by the NGO Wildlife SOS here.


In the past one year, Delhi has witnessed several rare and protected species — dead and alive — brought in via illegal channels from across the country. The authorities have found nine leopard skins, four ‘sambar’ deer skins, 100 shawls made from shahtoosh (Tibetan antelope ‘chiru’ hair) and seven otter skins.



Several NGOs — along with the National Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Delhi Crime Branch, CBI and

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