Last 15 rhinos in Mozambique park betrayed by rangers, killed by poachers

[RoryTee]

*graphic* http://www.timeslive.co.za/Feeds/Reu...-04-53-606.jpg

Mozambique's game rangers have helped poachers kill every single rhino in the Mozambique section of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park according to the International Fund for Wildlife Management.

“It is tragic beyond tears that we learn game rangers have now become the enemy in the fight to protect rhino from being poached for their horns," said Kelvin Alie, Director of IFAW’s Wildlife Crime and Consumer Awareness Programme.

The game reserve had 300 rhinos in 2002, only to end up with the last 15 being killed last month.

The administrator of the park says that 30 rangers will appear in court soon, charged with being involved in the killings.

According to South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs 180 out of 249 rhinos in the Kruger National Park have been poached since January 2013. Rhino horn is used by Vietnamese traditional healers who believe it has some medicinal value.

Medical science meanwhile has demonstrated that it is basically the same stuff as finger nails, and doesn't have any medical value at all.

According to livescience, wildlife managers have begun tranquilising rhinos in places like the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, adjacent to the Kruger park, and injecting parasiticide and pink dye into their horns. Any consumer who uses the horn will likely suffer nausea, stomach ache and diarrhoea, but probably won't end up dying



http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2...ed-by-poachers
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-poachers.html
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This is so fucked up.

What do you guys think should be done with the poachers/rangers? I'm not one for the death penalty but this would almost change my mind.

[GennGreymane]

Trial and life imprisonment. We no longer have this animal because of their greed.

[diddle]

I am cynical enough to believe this, but I still would like a linked source

[RoryTee]

I am cynical enough to believe this, but I still would like a linked source

I noticed it as soon as I posted it , edited in already.

[GennGreymane]

I am cynical enough to believe this, but I still would like a linked source

I too am cynical enough

[diddle]

I noticed it as soon as I posted it , edited in already.

thank you good sir

[Revi]

Well, this is just fucking sad... Guess this is what happens when corruption becomes the social norm.

[Deleted]

Terrible, Why can't poachers tranquilize them before cutting off the horn? No need to kill them nowadays, they can still have their shitty chinese "medicine" and an innocent animal can live to reproduce, continuing the cycle. Though if I was in charge out there the poachers would be dead already.

[Tucci]

It's sad seeing an animal's life taken because some mouth breather thinks it has medicinal value or that a sharp object from a powerful creature looks good collecting dust on the wall. I wonder what excuse they have when the person they're trying to cure dies anyway. Or I wonder what story they tell to their friends when they ask how they got it. Probably that they wrestled it and ripped the horn off with their bare hands, lol.

[Darkis]

Though if I was in charge out there the poachers would be dead already.

This pretty much sums up the needed course of action.

[Stop Pretending]

Sadly nothing can be done at this point, the market is too god damn lucrative. Blame all the fucking idiots in China and the US who feel the need to have ivory what ever the fuck it is they need to have.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...-us-ivory.html

[Krolikn]

They need their hands chopped off as punishment. Oh and let them bleed out.

[Deleted]

This is so sad, why do people even want those stupid horns? For some magical wizard medicen?

Is it normal that I find this worse then the killing of 15 humans?

I'm strongly against the death penalty, but poaching innocent endangered wildlife is one of the worst crimes one can commit, its like blowing up the pyramids with dynamite.

[Deleted]

This is so sad, why do people even want those stupid horns? For some magical wizard medicen?

Is it normal that I find this worse then the killing of 15 humans?

I feel you, there are 7 billion+ humans but these Rhinos will soon be extinct, we may even live long enough to see the final one die.

[Deleted]

Bunch of stupid fucking wankers, why on earth would you fucking kill them.

Bleh.

[IIamaKing]

Kill them all. I mean really We have LOTS of people but animals like this are in short supply.

[Immitis]

why dont we just clone the rhinos?

[Deleted]

why dont we just clone the rhinos?

We shouldn't have to if stupid people didn't want to eat tigerpenis or take rhinohorn viagra.

[Deleted]

why dont we just clone the rhinos?

Something something religion, something something morals, something something don't play god.

We certainly have the technology to clone, as experienced with dolly the sheep; But is it currently feasible or not, as a rhino is far more complicated to clone than a sheep.

[Zethras]

why dont we just clone the rhinos?

Because
#1 Cloning isn't full-proof yet.
#2 Cloning doesn't result in a viable population, you end up with copies of 1 rhino.
#3 The cloning process will eventually result in genetic fading, and you'll have an unviable clone.