Prague zoo cuts off rhinos’ horns to stop poachers
…..A Czech zoo has removed the horns of its 21 rhinoceros’ as a precautionary measure after one of the creatures was killed by poachers at a French wildlife park.
After sedating the animals, zoo staff used a chainsaw to cut them off.
PÅ™emysl Rabas, the director of the Dvur Kralove zoo, around 70 miles north-east of the country’s capital, Prague,
It’s er, not a zoo in Prague, is it?
Were I a Rhino, having my horn chainsawed off would, I imagine, make me rather upset.
Why not either:
1) improve the security
or
2) remove the entire rhino and not just the horn.
Visitors might also be disappointed and angry to see mutilated rhinos.
Bonkers.
@TMB
1) 24×7 security costs a lot
2) Move the rhino to where ? Another zoo where it will be targeted again ?
Rather remove the horn and thus removing the danger of the animal being killed.
The demand for rhino horn has lead to museum pieces being dehorned. In South Africa they are experimenting with using a pink dye, similar to that used in money transport boxes, to dye the horns to deter poachers.
Ryanair fly there and call it Prague 🙂
Sell one horn to pay for the security of the other 20 rhinos.
At least, unlike the ‘Mail’, they did’t claim the horns were ivory….
The horns grow back, and removing them does not harm the rhino in any way.
There are farmers in South Africa that want to sell the farmed horns to finance the anti-poaching patrols, but the politicians won’t let them. So the rhinos continue to die needlessly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3q2Kl6gccA
@BIW,
+1. Seems quite obvious that all the zoos in the world should cut and sell the horns of their beasts to flood the market and potentially make it uneconomic to poach.
@BiW
That’s a new fact learned today – thanks.
Does the horn have a practical use? For fighting? To help them squint?
Build a double fence around the rhinos and put some big moggies in at night. Cheap, effective, and saves on feeding the big moggies.
[email protected]: Males fight over females, and it’ll be used for defence. Neither applies in a zoo environment.
Perhaps the UN should look in to making fake Rhino horns and crashing the market? They could even add a few poisons just to make the trade even more risky.
They’re made out of the same stuff as fingernails so the raw material is hardly in short supply. I quite like the idea of putting something really flamboyantly lethal in a batch of them and watching a few hideous mediaeval Chinese morons turning black in the face and croaking.
Does the Independent mention who are the buyers of rhinoceros horn?
Perhaps some shaming sent that way might have a salutary effect.