The monitors have found that China has imported 141 live white rhino from South Africa since 2000, far more than is needed for tourism purposes. Rhinos have suffered a catastrophic decline in numbers over the past 50 years. There are five rhino species, of which three live in Asia.
One of these, the Javan rhino, is close to extinction, with just 130 creatures estimated to be left, while the closely related Sumatran rhino numbers only about 300. Even the great one-horned rhino, found mainly in India, has only about 2,800 animals.
However, it is the fate of the more numerous African rhinos that is causing the most concern because of a surge in poaching, as well as exports.
Of the two African species, black rhinos number only about 4,200 while there are an estimated 17,500 white rhinos left. These days most are kept in reserves and wildlife parks, unlike a century ago when hundreds of thousands of animals roamed Africa.
The recent decline is, according to Traffic, almost all because of surging demand for rhino horn in Asian traditional medicine. Despite being made mainly of keratin, the same protein found in fingernails and hair, the ground-up horn is reputed to calm fevers such as malaria. There is also a renewed threat to rhinos from claims, said to be emanating from Vietnam, that the horn can cure cancer.
Rhino horn is now so valuable that Vietnamese embassy officials have been caught trying to smuggle horns back home. Similarly, South Africa has seen a surge in applications from Vietnamese hunters for licences to shoot captive-bred animals in private wildlife reserves.
Rhinos are just one of several species whose chances of survival could be determined by the talks. Others include African elephants, polar bears, bluefin tuna and hammerhead sharks
One of the thorniest issues under discussion is the growing number of tiger farms in China, where about 6,000 of the big cats are held in captivity — compared with the 50 or so which are left in the wild.
– from timesonline.co.uk
Don’t be a barbarian.
Please don’t buy Chinese medicine.