Wednesday, October 17, 2012

live or survive?


In the photo is the northern white rhino, which has only 6 individual in the world now, with 4 in the national park in Kenya, 2 in the zoo in California. The rhinos in Kenya are under military protection, with a 4 man anti-poaching team 24 hr guarded a single rhino. Doesn't sound like a good way to live, does it?

Ironically rhino population is actually doing pretty good in the past few decades, both black and white rhino number increased a lot. However, the number of rhinos poached increased dramatically from 2008 as well. It is estimated that 1.33 rhino is killed per day. 

Rhinos are killed in order to harvest their horn. Since rhinos are very powerful animals and it is impossible to dehorn them while they are awake. So, rhinos are killed. Even worse is that, in order to keep quiet, some poachers dart rhinos instead of shoot them, and take away their horns while they are unconscious. The way of horn removal is very brutal, poachers use chainsaw to chop off the horn. Rhinos will wake up with half of their face off. They usually bleed to death. 


This photo doesn't look too bad, if you google image of "rhino poaching", you will see thousand of bloody photos on the internet. 







So sad. 

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