Rhino DNA kits added to South Africa's Arsenal

From Rhino Conservation.org

South Africa’s embattled rhinos now have a new weapon on their side: 1,000 DNA kits have been provided to South African National Parks (SANParks) by the faculty of Veterinary Services of the University of Pretoria.

The kits are expected yield a higher conviction rate for rhino crimes, according to Dr. Cindy Harper, Head of Veterinary Genetics Laboratory (VGL) at the Faculty of Veterinary Science.

"The ability to obtain a full DNA profile from rhino horn allows us to match recovered horns to specific poaching incidents."

SANParks CEO, Dr David Mabunda, noted that DNA profiling would allow prosecutors to be tougher on rhino crimes.

"This will certainly go a long way in changing the trend of suspects found in possession of rhino horn only being charged with possession as the horns will be linked to a carcass lying somewhere in a national park or game reserve."

Read the entire release at SANParks receives kits to fight rhino poaching .

DNA analysis at work
Indeed, it was DNA evidence that led to at least three successful convictions over the past 13 months.

For example, in June 2010, a Vietnamese rhino horn smuggler was sentenced to 10 years in prison after the rhino horns in his possession were found to be a DNA match to rhinos that were killed a few days earlier.

So far this year, DNA analysis has been instrumental in two cases which put a total of four rhino killers in jail.

In April 2011, DNA evidence helped put two killers behind bars for a combined total of 19 years.

Earlier this month, DNA analysis of the rhino and horns helped secure the convictions of two Mozambican nationals, who were sentenced to a combined total of 16 years in prison.

Killing continues
SANParks announced that the year’s rhino death toll had already reached 173 as of June 6th.

Since that time, a female rhino was killed on a private game farm in Hoedspruit. The assailants also shot and wounded her four-month-old calf.

However, the number could be as high as 186, according to sources outside the media.

Ancient Female Ancestors Roamed Far and Wide for Mates

From Science
by Ann Gibbons

When it came time for members of the human family to find a mate in South Africa about 2 million years ago, it was the females, not the males, who made the first move. A new study of the teeth of 19 australopithecines from cave sites in South Africa suggests that females moved away from their birthplaces far more often than the larger males, who stayed surprisingly close to home and kin.

For several decades, researchers have debated whether early human ancestors lived in close-knit social groups made up of related brothers and fathers, with new genes introduced by female mates gathered from other groups. Chimpanzees follow this pattern too, but in most primates, new males move into groups of related females; in gorillas, for example, one male lives in a harem with many related females. It has been a “monumental task” to test models of the social organization of early members of the human family, known as hominins, says Matt Sponheimer, a co-author of the new study and a paleoanthropologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “It’s as if someone told you to investigate the ecology of a giraffe but you were forbidden to observe them in the wild and confined to a room that contained a relatively small number of giraffe bones.”

In recent years, though, scientists have refined a nondestructive method that can reveal what ancient hominins ate and what type of ecological zones they inhabited. Researchers use lasers to ablate tiny sections of tooth enamel, less than 1 millimeter long, which releases two isotopes (or two forms) of the element strontium, so-called 87SR and 86SR. The ratio of those two isotopes reflects the region where individuals lived as children—when their teeth were forming—because the strontium from soil is incorporated into the plants and animals that they ate.

Lead author Sandi Copeland, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, along with Sponheimer and international colleagues, analyzed tooth enamel in 19 individuals from two species, Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, two members of the human family that were closely related to our direct australopithecine ancestor. The teeth came from two famous South African caves, Sterkfontein and Swartkrans. When they measured the ratio in the larger molars and canines, presumably from males, they found that before age 8, males fed primarily on dolomite soils around the caves. But at least half of the individuals with smaller teeth, presumably females, fed elsewhere, away from the local dolomite soils, when they were young. The pattern held for both species.

“This is the first direct evidence that exists for dispersal patterns among early hominins,” Copeland says. The findings, reported online today in Nature, suggest that such patrilocal organization of social groups is ancient in human ancestors, perhaps dating back to the common ancestor we shared with chimpanzees, as some researchers have proposed.

Copeland isn’t sure why males would move less than females in a region where there were no natural barriers. She plans to see if the pattern holds in australopithecines in other parts of Africa to see if this was the usual way australopithecines organized their clans. Regardless, “Copeland and her colleagues have come up with an innovative way to test this model, and in the process, they have developed the very first direct evidence of early hominin social organization,” says paleoanthropologist Peter Ungar of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. The new method should also reveal other ancient behaviors. “These results have implications for understanding australopithecine diet, group size, predator avoidance, and home-range size,” paleoanthropologist Margaret Schoeninger writes in a commentary published online today in Nature.

Reference
Copeland SR, Sponheimer M, de Ruiter DJ, Lee-Thorp JA, Codron D, le Roux PJ, Grimes V, Richards MP (2011) Strontium isotope evidence for landscape use by early hominins. Nature 474: 76–78 doi:10.1038/nature10149

Abstract
Ranging and residence patterns among early hominins have been indirectly inferred from morphol, stone-tool sourcing, referential models and phylogenetic models. However, the highly uncertain nature of such reconstructions limits our understanding of early hominin ecology, biology, social structure and evolution. We investigated landscape use in Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus from the Sterkfontein and Swartkrans cave sites in South Africa using strontium isotope analysis, a method that can help to identify the geological substrate on which an animal lived during tooth mineralization. Here we show that a higher proportion of small hominins than large hominins had non-local strontium isotope compositions. Given the relatively high levels of sexual dimorphism in early hominins, the smaller teeth are likely to represent female individuals, thus indicating that females were more likely than males to disperse from their natal groups. This is similar to the dispersal pattern found in chimpanzees9
, bonobos and many human groups, but dissimilar from that of most gorillas and other primates12. The small proportion of demonstrably non-local large hominin individuals could indicate that male australopiths had relatively small home ranges, or that they preferred dolomitic landscapes.

*updated* Saving Rhinos website and facebook page

*updated*: Louwtjie sent me this update on the rhino situation in S. Africa, like i said, its bad news "Rhino dump found on govt park - Limpopo officials have discovered a rhino cemetery containing 17 rhino carcasses at the Letaba Ranch, on the western border of the Kruger National Park." -MA

original post:
Maybe you have noticed I haven't been posting too much bad/sad conservation news lately, and there is a lot of it happening right now, I simply cannot keep up. The rhino poaching situation in South Africa is out of control it seems...consider 'liking" the saving rhinos facebook page or visiting their website at savingrhinos.org to keep up to date with the arrests, releases and poaching situation. -MA

Goddamit: South African Rhino Horn Syndicate Case Involving Safari Operators Thrown Out

Gert Saaiman and Frans van Deventer leave the court (photo credit: Chris Collingridge)

From Bush Warriors
BY RHISHJA LARSON

The rhino horn syndicate case involving George Fletcher, Gert Saaiman, and Frans Deventer has been thrown out by Judge Nomonde Mngqibisa of the North Gauteng High Court.

The suspects were believed to be responsible for slaughtering at least 19 rhinos, including three calves, in order to profit from the illegal rhino horn trade. Multiple charges had been brought against the accused, including racketeering, money laundering, various counts of theft, malicious damage to property and contraventions of the various provincial Conservation Acts and the Aviation Act.

Accused were ‘losing their social standing’ because of trial delays
After the prosecution’s star witness, Gideon van Deventer, refused to testify because of intimidation claims, a postponement was sought. However, the court ruled that to delay the case any further would be unfair to the accused. The judge pointed out that the State’s case was based on the testimony of a convicted criminal.

She said while she understands he is making it hard for the state to prepare for trial, the three accused – George Fletcher, Gerhardus Saaiman, Frans van Deventer – as well as their families, are living under the stigma of the charges which were levelled four years ago.

The judge said they are losing their social standing because of delays caused by a man in prison.

The defense team included attorney Terry Price, who was also responsible for getting Paris Hilton’s marijuana charges dropped during her World Cup visit.

Illegal rhino horn business ‘booming’
Rhino poaching has returned to South Africa with a vengeance and the illegal rhino horn business is booming. The killing has reached a 16-year high, with more than 600 rhinos slaughtered since 2005. Well-funded rhino horn syndicates maintain an extensive network of accomplices, and have managed to recruit game farmers, professional hunters, and even veterinarians into the gruesome business. Illegal rhino horn is still in high demand for traditional medicines in China and Vietnam, despite the fact that rhino horn has been extensively analyzed and found to be of no medicinal value. Most rhino horn leaving southern Africa is destined for China and Vietnam, according to the latest research by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

About the author: Rhishja Larson is the founder and Program Director of Saving Rhinos LLC, a public awareness program focusing on the illegal trade in rhino horn. She shares news, opinion, and commentary on her blog Rhino Conservation: Rhino Horn is Not Medicine. She has also been a guest blogger on National Geographic’s NatGeo News Watch, Rhino horn: All myth, no medicine.

South African rangers are kicking ass and taking names: 119 poachers arrested!

From News 24
Poachers shot in Kruger Park
Thanks to Louwtjie for the link!

A poacher was shot dead and another wounded in the Kruger National Park, SABC News reported on Thursday. The men were allegedly found armed inside the park on Wednesday by rangers who were patrolling, Sanparks CEO David Mabunda said. A shoot-out ensued and one of the men was killed. His accomplice escaped, but was arrested later while he was being treated at a hospital. A rifle, cellphone and ammunition was found on the dead man, SABC News reported.

Since the beginning of the year, 232 rhino had been poached throughout South Africa, 104 of them from the Kruger National Park.

One-hundred-and-nineteen alleged poachers had been arrested, 45 of them in the park.

--
also from News 24
Twenty-one people have been arrested in connection with rhino poaching in South Africa in the past three weeks.

Eleven people, including two veterinarians, a pilot and a game farmer, all allegedly part of a rhino poaching syndicate, were arrested in Limpopo last month. National police spokesperson Colonel Vishnu Naidoo said it was believed they had been involved in several hundred incidents of rhino poaching, rhino killing, selling of the horns and disposing of the rhino carcasses over the past few years. They allegedly operated around Polokwane, Modimolle and Musina.

Veterinarian Karl Toet and his colleague Manie du Plessis were said to be the two alleged masterminds behind the syndicate.

R1m bail
All 11 were released on bail ranging from R20 000 to R1m. Another two men were arrested in Limpopo in connection with dehorning rhinos and the buying and selling of horns. It was alleged that Jan Karel Pieter Els, 37, bought 36 rhino horns from Tom Fourie, 51, who allegedly dehorned the rhinos. The men had appeared in the Musina Magistrate's Court. Els was released on R30 000 bail and Fourie on R5 000 bail. A few days later three men were arrested inside the Kruger National Park by game rangers.

The game rangers came across the men walking around the park with rifles and allegedly in possession of two rhino horns while a carcass was found nearby. They appeared in the White River Magistrate's Court and were granted R7 500 bail each.

Highest level in 15 years
Police were investigating the possibility that the men were part of a syndicate responsible for other poaching incidents in the area. Last week five people believed to be rhino poachers were arrested in Ophathe Game Reserve near Ulundi in KwaZulu-Natal. The arrests were the result of months of investigating by a team of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife staff and police. The group was expected to appear in the Ulundi Magistrate's Court this week.

The Ophathe Game Reserve had been plagued by rhino poaching with three rhinos killed and their horns removed in the past ten days. Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife said the recent poaching of rhinos in the game reserve had bought the number of poached rhinos to 17 in KwaZulu-Natal this year.

South Africa has lost 210 rhinos to poaching since January, compared to 122 for all of last year. Black-market demand for rhino horns had risen sharply as economic growth had spread through east and south-east Asia, where the horn was believed to have medicinal properties.

Wildlife monitoring group Traffic said the surge in demand, combined with endemic poverty in many rhino habitats, had helped to push rhino poaching to the highest levels in 15 years.

Rhinos now being poisoned

Image from WWF

Is the only solution cutting off the rhino horns like they did with elephant tusks in the 80s/90s or could the amount of funds it would require to undertake that be used to up anti-poaching patrols? -MA
Thanks to Louwtjie dT for the link

From News24
Rhinos are now being poisoned

Johannesburg – A wildlife organisation warned on Wednesday that rhino poachers were now reverting to poison to kill the animals. Wildlife Ranching SA operational manager Reinhardt Holtzhausen said 14 cabbage halves sprinkled with poison were found on a game farm in Mookgophong at the weekend. He came across the heap by chance while driving through the game farm with his friend.

"The rhinos were literally 100m from the spot where we found the heap of cabbages. Luckily we could remove all of them before any damage was done." He said the cabbages were placed in the vicinity of rhino middens. Rhinos have the habit of visiting their dung piles often, and then eating whatever food has been planted there.

Clever people
"These are clever people; they obviously know the rhinos' habits," said Holtzhausen. Seven cabbages were cut in half and sprinkled with blue crystals, smaller than the size of ground pepper corns. Holtzhausen said he suspected the poison was either curaterr or albicarap and had been sent to the police for forensic tests."We are waiting for the results," he said.

Last week, a group of people, including two veterinarians and a game farmer, appeared in the Musina Magistrate's Court for allegedly being part of a rhino poaching syndicate.

More than 200 rhinos have already been killed by poachers this year, compared to 122 the whole of last year.

DOUCHE BAGS OF THE YEAR: South African vets involved in 100s of cases of rhino poaching!

from NEWS24
Rhino poaching - vets arrested
BY MARIETIE LOUW-CARSTENS

Johannesburg - Two well-known veterinarians from Modimolle in Limpopo were arrested on Monday, along with seven other people, over their alleged involvement in "hundreds of incidents" of rhino poaching. National police spokesperson Vishnu Naidoo said the suspects are "the masterminds" of a syndicate believed to be involved in rhino poaching across the country. "The arrests were a great breakthrough for us. More arrests may follow," Naidoo said.

Dr Karel Toet and his wife, Marisa, were arrested early on Monday morning. Dr Manie du Plessis, one of Toet's partners, was also arrested. They own the Nylstroom animal clinic, as well as Limpopo Wildlife, which is involved with catching and transporting game on farms. Naidoo said two businessmen - as well as the one businessman's wife - were also behind bars. The other suspects' occupations are unknown. They were arrested in Polokwane, Musina and Modimolle respectively. "These people were supposedly involved with killing rhinos, selling the horns and disposing of the carcasses," said Naidoo.

Helicopters
This breakthrough comes after five rhinos were killed for their horns in a nature reserve in the North West at the weekend. Altogether 210 rhinos have been killed for their horns since the start of the year, compared to 122 poached last year.

Naidoo said the police's specialist unit, the Hawks, conducted the investigation and made the arrests in co-operation with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), SANParks, the department of nature conservation and the national prosecuting authority (NPA). Farmers in Limpopo's Lephalale and Vaalwater areas, as well as the North West, have recently complained about helicopters with obscured registrations flying over game farms. The CAA was approached to take part in the investigation.

It was alleged that poachers were dropped on farms by helicopter and then picked up again once they had cut off the animals' horns.

Cold-blooded slaughter
Beeld has heard that the vets from Modimolle have been under investigation for the last few months. The news of their arrest spread through town like a wildfire on Monday. Monday's arrests came about a week after Tom Fourie, a well-known figure in wildlife circles in Musina, was arrested. He has already appeared in court and was released on R2 000 bail. It is not clear whether Fourie is involved with the same syndicate.

Naidoo said the police have their eye on other syndicates that are involved in "the cold-blooded slaughter" of rhinos in nature reserves and game farms.

The investigating team is still searching various properties.

Naidoo said the nine suspects are being held in the police cells in Musina. They will appear in the magistrate's court on Wednesday, at which time the exact charges will be announced.

Faan Coetzee, head of the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), was overjoyed about the news on Monday. "We've been waiting a long time for this," he said.

Thanks to Louwtjie dT for the link!

Rhino Miraculously Survives Chainsaw Attack by Poachers in South Africa

From bushwarriors

In a horrifying testament to the brutality of the illegal rhino horn trade, a vicious attack by poachers in a South African reserve has robbed a female rhino of her horns, her sense of smell, her one-month-old calf, and her ability to communicate with other rhinos.

Poachers reportedly used a chainsaw to brutally cut away the rhino’s horns after darting her with a tranquilizer in Tugela Private Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, between Ladysmith and Colenso.

The blades cut so deep into the rhino’s skull that her horns will never grow back, leaving her permanently disfigured and without her sense of smell, which is the rhino’s main method of communicating with one another.

Because she was unable to smell, the rhino could not locate her helpless one-month-old calf, who was later found dead.

Illegal rhino horn destined for China and Vietnam

A recent report by the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC revealed that most illegal rhino horn leaving southern Africa is destined for consumer markets in China and Vietnam, where traditional Chinese medicine containing rhino horn has been used for thousands of years to treat an assortment of ailments, from fevers to boils – and even devil possession.

However, overwhelming scientific evidence has confirmed that rhino horn actually contains no medicinal properties, as demonstrated by world-renowned rhino horn expert Dr. Raj Amin in the following video:

Vigilante Justice: Game manager injecting poison into rhino horns to make rhino horn consumers sick

From mongabay.com
Already illegal, one man tests poisoning rhino horn too
JEREMY HANCE

Given the epidemic of rhino poaching across Africa and Asia, which has placed four out of five species in jeopardy of extinction, one fed-up game manager wants to take the fight beyond the poachers to the consumer. Ed Hern, owner of the Lion and Rhino Park near Johannesburg, told South Africa's The Times that he has begun working with a veterinarian on injecting poison into a rhino's horn to consumers. He told The Times that people who consumed poisoned rhino horn "would get very sick or die".

Unlike the consumer, the rhino likely wouldn't be hurt by the poison, since their was no blood flow from the horn into the rest of the animal. Still Hern was watching his test rhino to make sure it wasn't showing symptoms.

Hern has been warned by unnamed lawyers that he could get "into a lot of trouble" if someone is harmed by ingesting rhino harm that was poisoned.

Banned worldwide by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) rhino horn is used as a traditional curative in Chinese medicine. While scientific studies have shown that rhino horn has no medicinal properties, it remains in high demand fueling the violent and illegal trade of rhino poaching.

In the last six months, South Africa has lost 124 rhinos to poachers. Ed Hern—on the frontlines of the poaching battle—has taken in five rhino orphans whose mothers were killed. Hern pays private guards to protect his rhinos, but says they are no match against the hi-tech equipment, including helicopters, used by the wildlife trafficking mafia.

Rhino horn consumption recently made news after supermodel and host of Britain's Next Top Model, Elle Macpherson, said in an interview that she consumed powdered rhino horn, because "it works for me". She has since claimed that despite the statement, she had never knowingly taken a substance from an endangered species and her comments were "banter with an interviewer".

Have your say, vote in this poll: "should rhino horns be poisoned?"

last white rhino in SAfrican reserve killed: Shot from plane with tranquilizer, horn sawed off, and left to bleed to death

From TreeHugger.com
Poachers Kill Last Female White Rhino in South African Reserve
by MATTHEW McDERMOTT

One more symbol of the rising global demand for rhino horn and its devastating effect on rhinoceroses in both Africa and Asia: The Guardian reports that the female white rhino in South Africa's Krugersdorp nature reserve has been killed by poachers--who used a tranquilizer gun, fired from a helicopter, to bring down the animal, prior to hacking off its horn, leaving it to bleed to death and orphaning its young calf in the process.

A private airport near the 1500-hectare reserve may have been the launching point for the attack. Japie Mostert, chief game ranger at Krugersdorp:

The exercise takes them very little time. They first fly over the park in the late afternoon to locate where the rhino is grazing. Then they return at night and dart the animal from the air. The tranquilizer takes less than seven minutes to act. They saw off the horns with a chainsaw. They do not even need to switch off the rotors of the helicopter. We do not hear anything because our houses are too far away. The animal dies either from an overdoes of tranquilizer or bleeds to death

Rhino Horn Worth More Than Gold
Rhino poaching is at a fifteen year high as demand for the horn--still used in Traditional Chinese Medicine despite being officially removed from the pharmacopeia--continues to rise. At the end of last year, rhino horn trades for about $1610 an ounce, more than gold.

The southern white rhino population is listed by the IUCN as near-threatened, and is the most abundant rhino population in the world. By contrast the northern white rhino is considered critically endangered or extinct in the wild, with well under 10 individuals left.

Total African rhino population--including the 3,000 or so black rhinos left in the wild--have been reduced from an estimated 65,000 animals in the 1970s to about 18,000 today.

related: WATCH VIDEO - Discovery News: Poaching Endangers Black Rhinos

sorry, another world cup post, but its also about Africa and poverty and it's really really well done!

this is a little bit akward and painful but really really good! -MA via the Daily Show facebook page

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
World Cup 2010: Into Africa - Goal Diggers
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

grey area? poaching indivduals to save populations...

I can appreciate some arguments:
"rhino conservationists could not rely on the animals acting as a draw for tourists on wildlife-watching safaris in Africa as the industry was financially “not very high yielding”."..."The realities of 21st-century conservation means compromises and difficult decisions need to be made.”...“It will be cash that saves the rhinos, not tears,”

but the whole thing does seem a bit shady and I doubt the following:
“The [African] governments have retention schemes and they track the money. They distribute and allocate it to how they see fit into rhino conservation and sustainable development. Most of, if not all, the money is returned to rhino conservation.”..."In Namibia, where all black rhinos are owned by the state, money from the hunts is also said to be distributed to the local population, giving them an incentive to keep the rhino populations viable."

It is good food for thought in any case, perhaps sad just to acknowledge that we are really coming to the end of the line when people, who I am sure care very deeply about wildlife, feel these are the measure they must resort to (click here to go to a disturbing gallery of big white hunters and their "trophies". Actually, on that note I will refer you back to today's earlier post on empathy)- MA

From Africa Geographic via the Africa Geographic facebook page
A pregnant rhino mother and calf have been killed by poachers on a South African farm in the same week as British charity Save the Rhino has endorsed the shooting of rhinos

Daniel Foggo, reporting for The Sunday Times:

Save the Rhino, the British charity set up to protect one of the world’s most endangered animals, is endorsing the shooting of them for fun and is directly profiting from “trophy hunts” of other species. The London-based charity has decided to endorse the controversial practice of rich hunters shooting rhinoceroses after being approached by a hunting lobby group offering money. Safari Club International (SCI) has so far donated about £32,000 to the charity, much of it raised by auctioning the trophy hunts to shooting enthusiasts.

The charity said it adopted its stance, which is at odds with many other wildlife organisations, after deciding to be “not sentiment-driven” about conservation and encourage the “sustainable use” of animals. “We don’t want to see animals being killed but it’s the situation we are in,” said Lucy Boddam-Whetham, the charity’s fundraising manager, who admitted the issue was “extremely emotive”. “It’s looking at all the different ways we can make sure we get money for conservation coming in.” She said the charity had formed its view on trophy hunting after being approached by SCI with offers of money in 2006. Since then SCI has donated sums of between £6,000 and £10,000 a year.

“Our position came out of whether we would accept funds from SCI,” Boddam-Whetham said. “Having discussed the pros and cons we felt overwhelmingly in favour of the SCI partnership. The realities of 21st-century conservation means compromises and difficult decisions need to be made.” She said rhino conservationists could not rely on the animals acting as a draw for tourists on wildlife-watching safaris in Africa as the industry was financially “not very high yielding”.

Matthew Eckert, manager of conservation for SCI, said his hunting organisation was only too pleased to find a willing recipient of its money in Save the Rhino. It had been snubbed by some other charities. He said: “We are struggling with gaining credibility. It’s difficult with being a hunting organisation who hunts endangered *or* threatened species when the public doesn’t know that hunting these species can actually benefit them.”

Although there are five rhino species remaining worldwide, only two — the black and white rhinos that both live in Africa — can be legally hunted.

Since 2004, hunters have been able to pay to shoot up to 10 black rhino a year in Namibia and South Africa, at a cost of up to £170,000 each. The animal, which is officially listed as critically endangered, numbers only about 4,200 in the wild. White rhinos, which were once facing extinction as a species, now number about 17,800 and have the status of “near threatened”. They can be hunted in South Africa on private reserves at a cost of about £12,000 each.

Both species are threatened by poachers who kill them for their horns — which can be sold for up to £41,000 a kilo and are used in Chinese medicine and for ornamental purposes. Other threats include the steady erosion of their natural habitats.

Campaigners for trophy hunting say that by allowing hunters to shoot rhinos, the proceeds can be invested into ensuring the future safety of the species by paying for more anti-poaching measures.

Eckert, whose club’s members number 53,000 worldwide and include hunters who have shot rhino, said: “The [African] governments have retention schemes and they track the money. They distribute and allocate it to how they see fit into rhino conservation and sustainable development. Most of, if not all, the money is returned to rhino conservation.”

He said only mature males past their reproductive prime were selected to be hunted and that by removing them, the breeding females were more likely to mate with younger, more virile specimens.

In Namibia, where all black rhinos are owned by the state, money from the hunts is also said to be distributed to the local population, giving them an incentive to keep the rhino populations viable. Concerns have been raised, however, that rhino hunts in South Africa are not as strictly regulated and even that some hunts might be implicated in the illegal trade of rhino horn.

Laura Bailey, the fashion model who was until recently one of Save the Rhino’s patrons, said she was “very surprised” to hear about the charity’s endorsement of hunting the animals it wanted to save. “I will look into it privately, but I’m not going to comment without doing some more research,” she added.

Some other wildlife campaigners oppose Save the Rhino’s policy. Will Travers, chief executive of the Born Free Foundation, an animal welfare charity that opposes trophy hunting, said: “I find the whole concept deeply depressing.” He added: “There seems something deeply unethical about championing rhino conservation and then using the money from rhino killed for ‘fun’ to protect some of those that remain.”

A British shooting magazine, Sporting Rifle, has also announced an auction of trophy hunts of animals such as wild boar, muntjac and red deer with all the proceeds to go to Save the Rhino. Peter Carr, editor of Sporting Rifle, said the magazine was hoping to raise a minimum of £6,000 for Save the Rhino from its auctioning of hunts for which readers will email bids. “It will be cash that saves the rhinos, not tears,” he said.

Since it was founded in 1994, Save the Rhino has attracted numerous high-profile supporters. Its founding patrons included Douglas Adams author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, who helped raise its profile by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in a rhino costume. Runners in similar suits completing marathons for the charity have since become a familiar sight. Save the Rhino’s current patrons include Martina Navratilova, the former tennis champion, who won £86,000 for the charity on the US version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Poacher devoured by lion

A suspected wildlife poacher has been eaten by lions in Kruger National Park. Park rangers confirmed yesterday that they had found a human skull and fragments of clothing in the Phabeni area of the park after friends of the dead man had reported his disappearance. SA National Parks said that the man, whose name has not been released, was apparently laying snares for wildlife when he was chased by a group of hippos and later attacked and eaten by lions last weekend. Park spokesperson Laura Mukwevho said the dead man’’s family went to the Mkhulu police station last Wednesday to report his disappearance.

The case was referred to the Skukuza police station and it emerged that two wildlife poaching suspects being held at that station had already alerted his family to the possibility that he might have been killed by wild animals in the park. They later confessed to police and park rangers that they had entered the park illegally on March 12 to lay snares. The three men returned to the park the next day to check if any animals had been caught. “That night they came across hippos which charged them, and the men rain in different directions. The two suspects managed to escape the hippos and eventually get out of the park, but the third man never arrived home.”

The police subsequently referred the matter to park rangers who mounted a search operation in the area described by the suspects.“After two days of patrol, the rangers managed to pick up a few pieces of clothes and eventually a human skull on Saturday, March 20.”

Mukwevho said the two alleged accomplices were being held at Skukuza police station. Parks spokesperson William Mabasa expressed condolences to the family for the loss of their loved one.

monkey economics: "only the cooperative survive"

Monkey business: Jungle economics

By Kevin Voigt, CNN from CNN.com

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* Primatologists are investigating how economics operate among monkeys

* The more time monkeys are groomed, the richer they are within the group

* Experiments show exchange rate of 'grooms' vary with supply and demand

In Indonesia, researchers have watched how long-tail macaques trade for sex. In South Africa, vervet monkeys climbed the ladder of their social group by learning a new trade in apples.

This line of study examines how economic models explain social behavior in the natural world.

"Animals neither negotiate verbally nor conclude binding contracts, but nevertheless regularly exchange goods and services without overt coercion and manage to arrive at agreements over exchange rates," European researchers wrote in a recent paper on market behavior among vervet monkeys in South Africa.

"It's really looking at the economy of nature," said Michael David Gumert, a primatologist and assistant professor in the division of psychology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Gumert spent 20 months in the jungles of Indonesia studying long-tail macaques, observing the mating market among the monkeys.

While the U.S. dollar may be the primary global currency among humans, in the primate world coinage can be best called "The Groom" -- the more time you get being groomed, the richer you are within the monkey social group, researchers have observed.

Gumert found that male monkeys "pay" for sex by grooming female monkeys. After being groomed, females would mate nearly four times an hour with the groomer, and are less likely to mate with others. But the larger the market of male companions, the higher the price of sex:

Areas with low density of males, the price was only eight minutes of grooming. In areas where there were more males, the price could double to 16 minutes.

Sex isn't the only commodity for sale in the jungle. Female macaques will line up to groom a new mother in order to hold her offspring, Gumert observed. "When a mother has a baby, the other females are attracted to the baby and want access to it," he said.

The findings support the "biological market theory," a term created by researchers Ronald Noe and Peter Hammerstein in trying to understand reciprocal behavior in primates and the unwritten code of trade that appears in the wild.

"(My colleague) said, 'this looks like a market', and we started investigating in those terms," said Noe, a primate ethologist at the University of Strasbourg.

And like in capital markets, supply and demand rules the jungle. In one recent experiment led by Noe's student, Cecile Fruteau, in South Africa, a low-ranking vervet monkey in the wild was trained to open a box of apples for the group. Instantly, the stock value of the monkey shot up.

"The pattern of grooming she got was like the pattern of a dominant animal," Noe said.

Then the researcher trained another low-ranking monkey the same skill to see what competition would do in the monkey market. And like human markets, the duoply reached a point of equal distribution of grooms.

What fascinates Noe is that without any sort of outward system, there seems to be an innate sense among the group of the value of these new goods and services.

"They make the changes very quickly and seem to have a keen sense of what it is worth," he said.

There may be other forms of currency trading hands that the researchers can't compute -- such as greater tolerance among each other when feeding, or stored knowledge that the improved relationship will come in handy in a fight.

"Grooming is something that is consistent and we can easily measure," said Noe.

Researchers stop short of saying this research has -- so far -- signaled that economics is an innate trait in our closest animal cousins, but it raises thought provoking questions if there is an evolutionary dynamic to the forces that gave rise to Wall Street.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the tacit negotiation that happens in primate groups suggests that the maxim that "only the strong survive" isn't quite right, Gumert said. "It seems really more like, 'only the cooperative survive'."

DNA used to trace origin of Taiping Four

image from IFAW.com

A SAD AND CONVOLUTED TRAIL
DNA used to trace origin of Taiping Four
From the Globe and Mail

STEPHANIE NOLEN

August 31, 2007

JOHANNESBURG -- It has taken years for primatologists and animal-rights organizations to piece together the story of the Taiping Four gorillas.

Analysis of their DNA shows they are related to gorillas in Cameroon. It's likely that their mothers were shot by poachers and they were smuggled across the border and sold to a zoo in Ibadan in northern Nigeria. Then they were shipped to the zoo in Taiping, Malaysia, in 2001, as part of an "exchange" of zoo animals, although it was never clear what the Taiping zoo was meant to be sending to Ibadan.

In fact, according to documents unearthed by the International Primate Protection League, the gorillas were sold from Ibadan by a Nigerian trader working with Nigerians in Malaysia. The Malaysian government allowed the import of the gorillas, as captive-bred animals but - as the IPPL points out - it should have taken them just two minutes to figure out that there is no gorilla-breeding program in Nigeria and the gorillas had to have been wild, and thus their import was a violation of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species.

The IPPL alerted the Malaysian government, which eventually seized the gorillas. But what to do with them?

Somehow, apparently as a result of a close friendship between a CITES official and the then-director of South Africa's National Zoological Gardens, they wound up in Pretoria. (South Africa was already complicit, because the gorillas were flown to Malaysia through Johannesburg with nary a raised eyebrow, although again, the export of live gorillas from Nigeria was clearly illegal.)

And there the gorillas have sat since 2004, while the governments of Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa and Malaysia argue about where they should go, and when. The International Fund for Animal Welfare has been poised to ship them to a primate centre in Cameroon for years, and even got so far as to book flights and have crates made, but bureaucratic pettiness has kept the Taiping Four sitting in Pretoria.

Nigeria was the only country to take action about this smuggling case; complicit
officials in Ibadan were fired and a commission of inquiry held to map out the smuggling route. The fund hopes the gorillas will finally leave Pretoria next month.

Jessica the Hippo