September 9

WWF Rhino Day – 22 September 2010

September 9, 2010

Don’t Forget to Remember the 22nd of September!!!

 

22 September has been declared RHINO DAY by the WWF. They are calling on all concerned citizens to dust off their vuvuzelas, toot their horns and to make as much noise as possible at 1pm (CAT) as a symbolic act to raise awareness that the time has come to take serious and effective action against rhino poaching. Tomorrow is too late.

So please join us Rhino Africans on Wednesday 22 September outside Parliament at the Louis Botha statue in Cape Town – we will assemble at midday (12:00).


The rate at which rhino are being poached in South Africa is heading for a point where the number killed will exceed the number born, The World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF) African rhino programme manager Joseph Okori warned on Monday.

There are about 19 000 white rhino and 1 470 black rhino in reserves and national parks around South Africa. Rhino Day has been created in an effort to highlight the dramatic increase in rhino poaching in South Africa since 2008.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question on Monday, Environment Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said that 139 rhino – five black and 134 white rhino – had been poached on private land, provincial reserves and in the Kruger National Park between January 1 and July 16 this year. This is unacceptable.

Responding to a question by Democratic Alliance MP Gareth Morgan, the minister said she had no plans to institute an investigation into the reasons for the escalation in rhino poaching. However, current measures were not sufficient to curb poaching, and her department was setting up an interim national wildlife crime reaction unit.

“The unit will be co-ordinated from the department… and will investigate the illegal killing and smuggling of rhino horns,” she said. Okori said the criminal syndicates behind the poaching were well organised.

“They have helicopters and assault rifles, and are able to procure narcotics (to dart the rhinos). They must have very good connections within institutions that possess these drugs to be able to do so.

“There is also the question of how they manage to smuggle the horns out of the country so quickly, given all the border security put in place for the (Soccer) World Cup,” he said.

According to the WWF website, the surge in poaching is “fuelled by demand for horn from the Asian market”.

Okori said the rate at which rhino were currently being poached meant about 275 animals would be killed this year. “If the poaching surge continues, we will hit 1 450, which will be seven percent of the current rhino population in South Africa,” he said. At this point, the rate at which rhino were being killed would exceed the birth rate, Okori said. More rhino have been killed in the first seven months of this year than were poached in the entire period from 2000 to 2007.

At Rhino Africa we have raised over R800,000 this year alone through our Challenge4aCause initiative. Challenge4aCause supports the Save the Rhino Trust which does great work in protecting the Namibian desert adapted Rhino population. But raising money is not enough. The fact is that government does spend money on anti-poaching – we are not looking to criticise government, but rather to raise awareness and adopt a unified and holistic approach working with government and the private sector to speed up the implementation of these initiatives and improve the effectiveness of the spending. We would ask as many of you to join us as possible on Wednesday 22 September outside Parliament – we will meet at midday and will be congregating with posters and placards and vuvuzelas to make some noise for our horny friends!!! Please try and wear red if you can.


Tags

Conservation, Rhino Africa, Wildlife


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About the author 

Matthew Sterne

Matt discovered a passion for writing in the six years he spent travelling abroad. He worked for a turtle sanctuary in Nicaragua, in an ice cream factory in Norway and on a camel safari in India. He was a door-to-door lightbulb-exchanger in Australia, a pub crawl guide in Amsterdam and a journalist in Colombia. Now, he writes and travels with us.

  • It’s a sad reality but the syndicates for these types of things have money and money is power. its exactly the same with abalone poaching. why hasn’t that stopped? the rate at which they are being poached abalone will be extinct in the wild in 10 yrs. poaching, as mentioned in the article, is so well organised and the thing about these reserves is their proximity to boarders where every cm is manned. people from mozambique come into SA every day illegally so imagine how easy it is to smuggle rhino horns over.

  • Somebody should inform Ms Sonjica that according to officials, at the end of August, the number of rhino killed this year was 180. Shocking!

    • @Alita Vorster

      “Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said that 139 rhino – five black and 134 white rhino – had been poached on private land, provincial reserves and in the Kruger National Park between January 1 and July 16 this year”

      Not the end of August.

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