Rhino Poaching (outside SA) & Horn Trafficking

[Flutterby]

Wonder how Mr Peng qualifies these pics....do Chinese people really love animals???

[Lisbeth]

Horrible!!!!!

[Richprins]

It's the same mindset amongst the impoverished over here...in fact most of the locals..

A third world system.

[Bushcraft]

I can’t say what I really feel about this other than there’s some sick people in this world

[Lisbeth]

This kind of behavior IMO often has its roots in a profound ignorance, lack of education and insensibility towards things that they do not know nor understand, read animals and nature.

[Flutterby]

Texas emerging as center for illegal trade of black rhino horns

By NICK SWARTSELL Washington Bureau
nswartsell@dallasnews.com
Published: 10 November 2013 11:39 PM

WASHINGTON — A taxidermy auction isn’t the kind of place you’d expect to find international intrigue.

But among shoppers browsing rows of mounted bucks and zebra pelts for a bit of hunting lodge chic, smugglers have been snatching up black rhinoceros horns from Texas auction houses and selling them on the black market.

The illicit trade is global. Authorities say smugglers travel to Texas to buy the horns of the African-native rhinos and sell them to dealers in California and New York. These middlemen then ship them to Asia, where they command huge sums as an alleged cancer cure or party drug.

Last week, Michael Slattery pleaded guilty to smuggling rhino horns he bought in Texas. Slattery flew from London in 2010 to buy a mounted black rhino head at a taxidermy auction in Austin.

Authorities say Slattery is part of the Rathkeale Rovers, a group of Irish nomads active in organized crime, including smuggling operations. Last year, members of the Rovers broke into a number of museums in Europe to steal rhino horns.

According to court documents, the auction house initially refused to sell to Slattery because he wasn’t a Texas resident. Slattery then found an unidentified Texas day laborer to stand in as the purchaser.

He and two other suspects later sold the horns, along with two others, to a Chinese buyer in New York City for $50,000, authorities allege. Officers from the Fish and Wildlife Service finally apprehended Slattery in a New Jersey airport last month.

Edward Grace, a law enforcement officer with the service, said the prevalence of big-game hunting groups and auction houses in Texas makes the state attractive for smugglers looking to grab exotic hunting trophies. Grace works with Operation Crash, an agency program designed to catch people smuggling the horns.

Black rhino horn sells for up to $25,000 a pound in China and Vietnam, where rarity makes it a status symbol rumored to possess powers to cure hangovers or disease. Some young people in these countries even use ground up horn as a drug. The demand has greatly increased poaching.

“There’s this myth out there that rhino horn has properties that cure cancer,” Grace said. “But there are a number of studies that show rhino horn is just like fingernails. It has no medicinal properties.”

A federal law called the Lacey Act prohibits moving endangered species across state lines or selling them to out-of-state buyers. Violations can result in felony charges with fines up to $250,000 and five years in prison.

Grace said the wildlife agency and the Justice Department are investigating others in Texas in connection with horn smuggling. He declined to provide more details.
Slattery’s arrest isn’t the first with a Texas connection. In 2012, Wade Steffen, a 34-year-old rodeo rider from Hico, was arrested at the Long Beach Airport in California.
Steffen’s bag contained more than $300,000 in cash and a digital camera full of pictures of rhino horns. Later, searches found Steffen had $1 million in cash and gold along with a number of the horns.

Authorities say Steffen was buying from a large taxidermy auction in Fort Worth and then handing the horns off to associates in California, who subsequently shipped them to Vietnam. He was sentenced to six months in federal prison and $28,000 in fines. Steffen did not reply to requests for comment.

Auction house owners in Texas are quick to point out that most of their customers are just ordinary Texans looking to buy items legally to decorate their homes, restaurants or bars.

John Brommel runs the Corner Shoppe taxidermy shop in Austin and organizes twice-yearly auctions in Fort Worth. He said he takes great pains to ensure that buyers of Lacey Act-protected items are residents of Texas who know they cannot transport their purchases across state lines.
Brommel said the love of big game is part of the Texas hunting lifestyle.

“People grow up hunting and fishing in Texas,” he said, “and that whole thing is just a part of their life.”

The Dallas Safari Club, a big-game hunting group, recently announced plans to auction off a permit to hunt black rhinos in Namibia, where limited hunting of the animals is legal.

The club contends the hunt will help conservation efforts by eliminating weak members of rhino herds. The group said all of the expected $250,000 to $1 million made from the auction will go to conservation efforts in Namibia.

The group is asking federal agencies to issue permits allowing hunters to bring carcasses from the hunt back to the United States.

[Sprocky]

2013-11-19 16:09

Isiolo - Poachers slaughtered a rhino in one of Kenya's best guarded wildlife parks, officials said on Tuesday, in a brazen attack highlighting the risks gunmen are taking during a surge of killings.

"Poachers infiltrated Lewa's borders during the full moon on 17 November and killed Meluaya", a 17-year-old black rhino suspected to have been heavily pregnant and with a two-year-old calf, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy said in a statement.

"Both horns were removed and the poachers got away with them."

Lewa's more than 60 rhino are monitored every day by special surveillance teams, part of a security force of 150 staff. They include armed rangers and dog handlers who patrol with bloodhounds around some 150km of electric fence surrounding the park.

Conservancy personnel also use aerial surveillance to monitor the animals and try to track poachers.

Lewa is privately owned but run as a non-profit dedicated wildlife area, and came to world attention when Britain's Prince William stayed there with Catherine before proposing marriage.

Poaching has risen sharply in Africa in recent years, with rhinos and elephants particularly hard hit.

Earlier this month, Kenya's Attorney General Githu Muigai said the country had lost 90 elephants and 35 rhinos to poachers so far this year.

Asian consumers who acquire smuggled rhino horn - which is made of keratin, the same material as human fingernails - believe that it has powerful healing properties.

Isiolo county deputy governor Mohamed Guleid condemned the killing and pledged to "do everything to protect our national heritage and pursue the killers".

Earlier this month Kenya started inserting microchips into rhino horns. Wildlife officials plan eventually to microchip all rhinos in the country, just over 1 000 animals altogether.

Inserting the chips entails shooting the rhino with a tranquiliser dart fired from a helicopter.

- AFP

[Toko]

Are we losing the rhino war?

Sunday, 29 December 2013 00:00

Tendai Chara

Driving towards Kezi from Bulawayo can be a rare spectacle filled with pleasure. After only a few kilometres from the country’s second biggest city, large herds of grazing livestock are usually seen munching grass as they seem unfazed by the noise emanating from the many vehicles from the busy highway.

Further down the road, the landscape becomes particularly spectacular with valleys that are surrounded by both huge and small granite outcrops. Balancing rocks hang precariously as if they might fall off any time.

It is in this vast conservation area that the Matopos National Park, a World Heritage site which is rich in both history and culture, is located.
Intertwined with this beautiful scenery is the abundant wildlife. From the squirrel to the giraffe to the endangered black rhino, the park is pregnant with a variety of reptiles, birds and several animal species.

The park is home to the zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, eland, reedbuck, impala and sable among other animals. Apart from the popular game drives, the historical tours and the rock paintings, visitors can also visit the grave of Cecil John Rhodes.

Shangani Memorial, which chronicles the often bloody historical conflicts between the white colonial settlers and the Ndebele people, is situated some few kilometres from the highway.

To the visitors, the area surrounding the Matopos National Park is a haven of tranquillity and beauty. However, it is in these serene environs and many other animal conservancies across the country that vicious “wars” to save the rhino from extinction are being fought.

Officers from the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management, villagers living in areas surrounding the park and tourism and conservation organisations are engaged in a bitter struggle to stop poaching activities and save the endangered rhino from extinction.

There are growing concerns that if the rhinos are not protected, they will, like the pre-historic dinosaurs, soon become extinct. During the past five years, there has been an alarming increase in rhino poaching which is threatening the existence of the animal species.

Recently, two white rhinos were shot and dehorned by poachers in the park. The park’s then oldest white rhino which was nicknamed “Gumboot” and was popular with tourists, was killed and dehorned recently. It is suspected that a South African poaching syndicate killed the 50-year-old rhino.

The other rhino that was also killed by the same syndicate was 10 years old. There are fears that wildlife poaching is not only widespread but increasing at an alarming rate in this country, especially following the tragic cyanide poisoning in Hwange National Park, which caused the deaths of an estimated 300 elephants.

The recent killing of the rhinos in Matopos came amid reports that 95 percent of all the rhinos in the world have now been killed.
Stakeholders in the Matopo area are determined to put a stop to rhino poaching.

Paul Hubbard, the project manager of the Whovi Game Fence Project, which seeks to build a fence around the Matopos National Park to protect the rhinos, urged all Zimbabweans to come together and save the rhino from extinction.

“Action is required now to save the rhino from the on-going poaching, or else we will be the generation responsible for the complete extinction of the rhino from the wild,” Hubbard said.

Hubbard is also the chairman of the Matobo Rhino Initiative Trust, a body that was established to save the Matopo rhino. The trust was established to assist in conserving, protecting and rehabilitating wildlife species in the Whovi Game Park, the Rhodes Matopos Estate and the Matobo area in general.

The trust is working with all the stakeholders and has so far constructed 20-kilometre stretch of fence at a cost of US$80 000.
With funds sourced from well-wishers, the trust engages the local communities.

During a visit by The Sunday Mail In-Depth to the area, locals could be seen erecting the fence.
“The support that we are receiving from the local community is amazing. It is the locals that have been behind this project since it was started. We owe the community and the other stakeholders a lot,” said Mr Hubbard.

Villagers living around the park vowed to save the rhino. Headman Pilisani Dube of Ward 6, Vulindlela in the Matopos area, is aware of the benefits that his subjects realise from saving the rhino.

“As a community, we are determined to save the rhino. The community benefits a lot from the animals and, as such, we are going to make sure that poachers are kept at bay by erecting the fence,” Headman Dube said.

Apart from protecting the rhino, the fence will also keep domestic animals out of the park and therefore preserving the environment. In the past 15 years, the Matopo rhino has faced serious threats from the poachers and both black and white rhinos have been shot and their horns brutally removed.

Only 10 years ago, the Matopos National Park had large populations of both white and black rhinos. Poaching has reduced these iconic species to barely viable breeding numbers.

Rhino poaching is also rife in the Save Valley Conservancy where about 60 rhinos were killed by poachers in the past 10 years. The Save Conservancy is the biggest private sanctuary for the endangered species. Since the early 1990s, the sanctuary had become home to close to 90 percent of the country’s rhino population.

It is suspected that the poachers are coming from Zambia and South Africa, armed with automatic weapons. Lowveld conservancies have managed to build up from just 4 percent of the national rhino herd in 1990 to the current 85 percent.

In January this year, four white rhinos were killed by poachers at Thertford Estate in Mazowe. It takes two years for a baby rhino to be conceived and born and the beast takes another four years to become an adult and another year before it becomes an offspring-bearing adult.

According to Caroline Washaya- Moyo, the spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, 13 rhinos were poached this year and their horns were hacked off.

Several people, including police detectives, have since been arrested and others have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms of up to 16 years.
Washaya-Moyo said the country lost 30 rhinos in private land in 2011 and five rhinos in State land to poaching.

In 2012, 14 rhinos were lost to poaching in private land and eight in State land. From January to June this year, eight rhinos were killed by poachers in private land.

The country has an estimated population of less than 1 000 black and white rhinos. Environment, Water and Climate Minister Saviour Kasukuwere recently set up a six-member Wildlife Ecological Trust as part of Government efforts to support conservation and anti-poaching mechanisms in the country.

On the international market, a rhino horn is currently fetching more than US$65 000 per kilogramme. According to internet sources, the rhino horn holds huge value for poachers, who sell the horns to mainly Eastern buyers for tens of thousands of dollars. In countries like China, Vietnam and Laos, the rhino horn is believed to have healing or aphrodisiac properties.

Sadly, all of them are under threat from poachers who supply the demand from Asia and the Middle East. Although there is no scientific proof of its medical value, the rhino horn is highly prized in traditional Asian medicine.

There has been an unprecedented upsurge in the poaching of rhinos in Africa. Rhino poaching is also rampant in South Africa where more than 800 rhinos were killed this year. Reports from South Africa indicate that two rhinos are killed in that country every day.

In West Africa, the wild black rhino has officially been listed as extinct. According to recent news reports, poachers killed and dehorned a 17-year old black rhino in the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya.

The rhino was suspected to have been heavily pregnant and also had a two-year-old calf. Reports indicate that the killings were done despite the fact that Lewa Conservancy is one of the most heavily protected wildlife refuges in that country, with armed rangers, dog patrols, aerial surveillance and 90 miles of electric fences surrounding the park.

The rhino was killed during a full moon, which is known as a prime time for rhino poaching due to the brighter light conditions.
Poachers across Africa are said to be using sophisticated methods.

Internet sources claim that over 40 rhino (black and white) have been poached so far this year in Kenya, which has a population of 1 025 black and white rhinos.

This means that the East African country has lost 3,9 percent of its rhinos in 2013. This is alarming considering that the average annual growth rate of any given rhino population is 5 percent. Conservationists are worried that poaching deaths together with natural mortalities will overtake rhino births, leading to the extinction of the rare and imposing animal.

In a positive development, the British government recently announced that it will send troops to Kenya to help support the fight against wildlife poaching. The army personnel will provide patrolling and field training to members of the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS), Kenyan Forestry Service (KFS), and Mount Kenya Trust (MKT). In Namibia two white rhinos were killed in November at a farm near the city of Karibib.

It is believed that one of the rhinos killed was also pregnant. According to conservationists, there are five species of rhino left in the world.
In Africa, there are approximately 20 000 white rhinos and only 5 055 black rhinos left. Considering that there were almost 500 000 rhinos across Asia and Africa at the beginning of the 20th century, this is an alarming statistic that requires urgent attention.

[Sharifa]

Is China’s appetite for rhino horn increasing?

The growth in illicit trafficking of rhino horns could be a disaster for South Africa’s remaining rhino populations

Report by Oxpeckers environmental journalism fellow Hongqiao Liu first published in The Third Pole

China is steadily becoming a more popular destination for illegal rhino horn shipments from South Africa, warn experts, after Chinese customs officials report a major increase in horn seizures.

“The rhino horn trade in China is more active than previously recognised and needs to be assessed more deeply,” said the international wildlife trade monitoring organisation Traffic earlier this year.

Vietnam is emerging as one of the major drivers behind rhino horn trafficking. According to Traffic, nearly two-thirds of illegal rhino horn was shipped to Vietnam, while the rest was believed to be consumed in China.

In January 2013 three suspects, including a Vietnamese national, were caught smuggling 14 rhino horns from Vietnam to China, along with 55.53 kilogrammes of ivory, a tiger skin and a tiger skeleton.

Monitoring data from Traffic also shows that since 2013 China has made a series of seizures at the Vietnamese border.

“Traffic has also received information from Vietnam and Laos that indicated that rhino horns imported to these countries are re-exported to China,” said Tom Milliken who leads the elephant and rhino unit at Traffic.

An ongoing investigation in Vietnam by Interpol and conservation activists also recorded Chinese clients buying rhino horns and rhino horn products in a shop that predominantly deals with Chinese customers. The shop owner even provides a routing delivery service from Hanoi to China to avoid risk for buyers.

Diverse trafficking routes

The trafficking routes of rhino horns seized on their way into China vary in every case. Poached in Southern Africa, the rhino horns may be shipped in cargo holds from Cape Town or Maputo. They may also be transported to other African countries like Nigeria first and then shipped among timber or agricultural products to China. In other cases horns have been mailed or shipped to North America or Europe, and then flown on to China.

“Mailing and cargo holds are the two main channels for rhino horn smuggling into China. The horns can also be transferred among large amounts of ivory,” said Wan Ziming, China’s national coordinator of enforcement for the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species.

Traffic cites a case involving a Thai national who confessed to smuggling a total of 300 kilogrammes of rhino horn on 15 occasions through the O.R. Tambo international airport in Johannesburg, often using Thai International Airlines. The horns were packed in personal check-in baggage, which was reportedly routed to Bangkok, then on to Laos, and finally to China.

In Southeast Asia, cross-border smuggling of horns from Myanmar and Vietnam into China has also been recorded.

With regard to Asia’s small and dwindling rhino populations, information gathered from interrogations of arrested poachers and traders, showed that the major trade route for rhino horns from South Asia was from Assam to Kathmandu in Nepal, via Siliguri or Kakarbhita, and then on to the Tibetan Autonomous Region with the ultimate destination being other cities in China.

Chinese smuggling groups have been caught using the United States as a trafficking stop. In February 2012 police arrested a group of seven alleged smugglers at Los Angeles airport. The leader was a Chinese national named Jin Zhao Feng, who faces charges of attempting to smuggle 12 rhino horns to China.

In February 2013, two Chinese nationals were accused of smuggling rhino horn from the US to Hong Kong and mainland China, one of whom stands accused of smuggling 20 rhino horns during 2011 and 2012.

More traffic?

Statistics from Traffic show that China accounted for an estimated two-thirds of the number and weight of horns seized in Asia between 2009 and September 2012. Thirty seizures of 67 rhino horns weighing 151.93 kilograms were documented. Over the same period only six seizures were recorded in Vietnam, involving 27 rhino horns weighing 70.86 kilograms.

Hong Kong has emerged as a major conduit in the rhino horn trade to China. In November 2011, a new record was set when customs seized 33 rhino horns and a large amount of ivory chopsticks and bracelets in a ship from Cape Town. Although the customs authorities refused to disclose the final destination, Tom Milliken said the rhino horns were most likely bound for Guangdong province.

Wan admits that there had been seizures of smuggled rhino horn in China every year since the government officially banned the trade in 1993, but he had not noticed a significant increase in seizures over the years.

“The number of rhino horns seized in all these cases is not proportional to the number of rhinos poached in South Africa,” he added.

Wan pointed out that officials in China scan all mailed packages, bulk cargo and shipping containers coming into the country, which is the reason that China leads in seizure numbers across Asia.

A source from Chinese customs argues that only a few seizures were made by customs of rhino horn. The reason might be that rhino horns are easy to hide from scans by customs, or because the actual trafficking amount is less than estimated.

Tom Milliken agrees that increasing seizure numbers reported by Chinese authorities demonstrates very good law enforcement, but it also indicates a greater traffic in rhino horn these days.

Susie Watts, an independent environmental policy researcher, said, “It’s too early to tell what will happen next in China. The signs are not good, though. A lot of rhino is going into China.”

This story was supported by the Oxpeckers Center for Investigative Environmental Journalists and the Wits China-Africa Reporting Project.
- See more at: http://china-africa-reporting.co.za/201 ... TpcJT.dpuf

[Richprins]

“Traffic has also received information from Vietnam and Laos that indicated that rhino horns imported to these countries are re-exported to China,” said Tom Milliken who leads the elephant and rhino unit at Traffic.

It's not really that China is the main consumer...the point is they have their fingers in most Sub-Saharan African countries, with normal corruption, so all roads lead to Rome, so to speak.

There is a reference to "mail" being an outsource avenue. That means diplomatic mail, the most secure avenue one has regarding interpol and what not.