We all know that every day should be Rhino Day, but Wednesday 22 September was a great excuse for us to dress up in red, dust off our vuvuzelas and congregate outside Parliament in Cape Town to make some noise for our horny friends. At present, we are losing rhino at a rate of nearly one a day to poachers.
Thankfully the weather played ball – the event was well attended by Rhino Africa, Wildlife Act, the WWF, Getaway Magazine and some passionate friends. The media were out in full force, including e-news, News24, The Cape Times, Cape Talk and KFM. Jeanne Crous, Ross Bowers and Anton De Wit were interviewed from Rhino Africa. We’d like to thank everyone involved for your support and we hope that Rhino Day represents only the tip of the iceberg in the battle against rhino poaching.
The rate at which rhino are being poached in South Africa is heading for a point where the number killed will exceed the number born. There are about 19,000 white rhino and 1,470 black rhino in reserves and national parks around South Africa. Rhino Day was created in an effort to highlight the dramatic increase in rhino poaching in South Africa since 2008. In a written reply to a parliamentary question, Environment Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said that 139 rhino – five black and 134 white rhino – had been poached on private land, provincial reserves and in the Kruger National Park between January 1 and July 16 this year. This is unacceptable.
According to the WWF website, the surge in poaching is “fuelled by demand for horn from the Asian market”. This is because of a booming economy and increasing rumour mongering of the health benefits of rhino horn as an aphrodisiac and as an anti-carcinogen.
The rate at which rhino are currently being poached means that about 275 will be killed this year. If the poaching surge continues, the rate at which rhino are being killed will exceed the birth rate. More rhino have been killed in the first seven months of 2010 than were poached in the entire period from 2000 to 2007.
At Rhino Africa we have raised over R800,000 this year alone through our Challenge4aCause initiative. Challenge4aCause supports the Save the Rhino Trust which does great work in protecting the Namibian desert adapted Rhino population. But raising money is not enough. Government does spend money on anti-poaching and has in fact set up a national wildlife crime reaction unit – we are not looking to criticise government, but rather to support their initiatives, raise awareness and adopt a unified and holistic approach working with government and the private sector to speed up the implementation of these initiatives and improve the effectiveness of the spending. We need to create a think tank that is as advanced as the poachers themselves and which can operate across borders, with the latest technologies and skills.
If you would like to donate to the cause, the you can either donate to the WWF:
https://www.wwf.org.za/act_now/rhino_campaign/
Or to our own Rhino Africa, Challenge4aCause campaign:
https://www.rhinoafrica.com/challenge4acause/pledge/
Also check out all the photos we took on our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=229704&id=83469258213&ref=mf
You can also find our posters on Facebook with download links for printable versions
Interesting blog piece about the recent CITES meeting in Geneva: http://fangaroo.org/rhino-crisis-round-up-massacre-continues-in-s-africa-mixed-results-for-rhinos-at-cites-more/
I’ll be there!
Please give me more info on what you are doing – I want to see if we can do something here in the UK, I will be in the air on the 22nd but hopefully some people will be able to help. We might have to apply for Health & Safety passes to stage an awareness campaign here though… but for the rhino’s ANYTHING
Can we organise something here in KZN?
Did you see the news about the Rhino that were poached at Aquila Private Game Reserve last wend? Horrific!
Thanks to Gillian at Rhino Africa, I will be in the air on my way to beautiful SA! Tahnk you for supporting this cause.