Putting a price on wildlife

Sometimes the more you know, the less things make sense.   Take wildlife trafficking, for example. The more I researched this story and the important work being done at the US Fish and Wildlife Service Forensic Lab – the more baffled I became at some of the reasons creatures like the rhinoceros are being driven to the edge of extinction.  How does a rhinoceros horn, which is made of keratin – the same stuff in the fingernail clippings you toss in the wastebasket or the snarl of hair you pull from your brush - become worth more money than cocaine, heroin, gold and even platinum?  How does it become so valuable that it’s worth eliminating entire species from the face of the planet just so people can get their hands on a carved cup or powder made from the stuff?

I was not alone in my bafflement.

“You hear about wastage, someone’s gone out and they’ve cut the rhino horn off the rhino and they let the rhino go and he’s not actually dead. That’s really cruel and it is really sad,” said Mary Burnham Curtis, Senior Forensic Scientist at the US Fish and Wildlife Service Forensic Lab.  “And then on the other hand, you look at it and go – why?  Why do you want this? Why is it so important to you to have a cup that was molded out of the horn of a rhino when it looks like plastic?”

For thousands of years, rhino horn has been coveted by people around the globe primarily for two reasons – its artistic beauty when carved and polished, and its perceived medicinal or special powers. Ancient Greeks thought it could purify water. And as far back as the 15^th Century, a libation cup carved from rhino horn was the gift of choice for Chinese nobles to celebrate an emperor’s birthday.   Practitioners of traditional medicine have prescribed it as a cure for everything from a fever to food poisoning, despite the lack of any solid scientific evidence to support its medical efficacy. 

Of course all this rhino horn love has not been good for the rhinoceros. At the turn of the 19^th century, about a million rhinos inhabited the earth.  By 1970, that number was down to 70,000.   Today, there are less than 30 thousand left in the wild.

The good news is that conservation efforts have helped.  Near the end of the century, the Southern White Rhino was near extinction – now there are about 20,000 roaming Southern Africa.  By the early 1990s, poaching had leveled off and through 2007, only an average of 13 rhinos were killed a year.

But something went haywire in 2008.  That year, 83 were killed, and since then, the number of deaths has risen exponentially, to a record breaking 1004 rhino deaths in 2013.    So far, 2014 is on track to surpass that record.   If poaching continues on this path, rhino deaths could outpace rhino births in a matter of years.

So why the sudden jump?  Some of the usual suspects come into play – globalization, economics, rising wealth, organized crime getting into the action.  But one of the main factors appears to be a sudden demand in Vietnam, apparently after a rumor spread in the mid-2000s that it cured a Vietnamese politician’s cancer.   There is no scientific evidence supporting that belief, but the increase in demand for horns has lead to a dramatic rise in the price of rhino horn.  Horn now sells for more $30,000 a pound on the black market.

Add frustration and anger to the bafflement.

“We need the public to understand that using rhino horn for any particular medical purpose is foolish,” says Ken Goddard, Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Forensic Lab.  “Chew your fingernail if you want to get the effect, it’s nonsense.  But that’s not stopping the rhinos from being killed so we’ve got to stop the flow. So we’ve got to stop the middle men and the buyers, the people with the money, from collecting those caches of horns, and then trying to knock off the rest of the rhinos.”

The sad truth is, once a myth like “rhino horn kills cancer” is out there, it’s hard to get people to stop believing it – especially if there are other people who are making crazy profits off that mistaken belief.  And when people think an object is pretty and rare, they will often spend tons of money on it and turn a blind eye to the devastation caused by their desire. Think conflict diamonds.  Think illegal gold mining and the Amazon rain forest.  To put an end to that destruction, it’s not enough to jail the poachers and the middlemen.  Consumers have to make the connection between what they buy and the end result.

“There's a huge disconnect about our habits of buying stuff and the impact it really has," said Ed Espinoza, Deputy Director of the lab.  I'll give you an example. Musicians, we don’t think of them as wildlife killers. But the number of very expensive musical instruments that have endangered parts is amazing. For example, ivory tips on the frogs of violin bows. Or, sometimes you see sea turtle shell on the same kind of stuff. Or on cellos that are made of endangered wood, or piano keys made out of endangered ivory.  These are people who are coming from a very cultured area and don't have a connection to what their beautiful art may impact elsewhere. And I see that in all steps of life.”

Joseph Johns is Chief of Environmental crime for the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.  He has prosecuted cases against rhino horn dealers in Los Angeles, and seen them sent to prison for the crime.  But he has this to say to consumers of rhino horn products.

“I would suggest to them that they have blood on their hands.”