A Perilous Threat to Rhinos

2 minute read
A black rhino lays motionless after being notched and micro-chipped in South Africa's Pilanesberg National Park. Microchips with unique identifying codes are inserted so that if the animal is poached, its horns can be tracedDominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
By TIME Photo Department

There are two groups of people shooting rhinos in southern Africa today. The first are poachers, who shoot to kill, then hack off horns and gouge out eyes. The second are game wardens, who stun with tranquilizer darts, then insert tracker microchips into the horn. After a lull for more than a decade in which rhino numbers began to recover, in the past few years the poachers have gained ground once more: 333 rhinos died in southern Africa last year, and the kill rate has accelerated again this year.

Why are rhinos dying again? Because globalization has lots to say about making billions of people richer, but nothing to say about what to do with the money. Rhino horn has been used in traditional medicine in China and Vietnam for centuries. Now that a new Asian elite can pay the earth for it, a new international poaching mafia is scouring the planet to satisfy that demand. The money on offer has persuaded more than a few game hands to turn poacher. It has persuaded others that, since a rhino does not have to die to give up its horn, and since only a live rhino can grow another one, legalizing horn sales and farming rhinos may be the only answer. Since a live animal would then be more valuable than a dead one, the thinking goes, it might even prompt a population increase.

For now, heavily armed rangers and poachers play a deadly game of cat and mouse across the bushlands of South Africa and Zimbabwe, frequently killing each other as they race from dawn to dusk to find the next unguarded rhino. The rangers are flat out. So are the poachers.

-Alex Perry

Dominic Nahr, a TIME contract photographer, photographed the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami and the spring uprising in Egypt. Nahr is represented by Magnum.

A black rhino lays motionless after being notched and micro-chipped in South Africa's Pilanesberg National Park. Microchips with unique identifying codes are inserted so that if the animal is poached, its horns can be traced Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
A team from South Africa’s North West Game Parks notch and micro-ship a sedated black rhino. Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
A car drives at night through private roads in the Madikwe Game Reserve.Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
The Madikwe Game Reserve.Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
A black rhino in the bush after it was darted for notching and micro-chipping.Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
Blood runs down the side of a black rhino during the notching and micro-chipping process. Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
The ear of a black rhino. Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
Rusty Hustler, the manager of South Africa’s North West Game Parks, notches a rhino.Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
Pilot John Bassi scans the North West Game Park for black rhino yet to be notched and micro-chipped. Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
A poached rhino lays dead on the grounds of Shingalana Private Game Lodge in South Africa.Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
An owner of the Shingalana Private Game Lodge reacts near investigators performing a post-mortem on a poached black rhino. Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
A pathologist points to a slug found in the heart of the poached rhino. Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME
Poaching, once restrained, has skyrocketed. From 2000-2007, only around a dozen rhinos were poached each year in South Africa, where nearly 90% of all rhinos live. But last year 333 rhino were illegally slaughtered there, nearly all found with their horns chopped off.Dominic Nahr—Magnum for TIME

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