How Do You Save the Rhino?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2015
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rhinos are in trouble. The ancient Sumatran rhino has just been declared extinct in Malaysia, following the fate of black rhinos in West Africa in 2011. Central Africa's northern white rhino has been reduced to four - yes, four - animals, and conservationists say the more plentiful southern white rhinos are under unprecedented attack from poachers eager to sell the horns to Asian and Arab buyers. This week The Inquiry hears four very different answers to the question: How do you save the rhino? Experts include Namibia’s first female dangerous game professional hunter and one of China’s biggest celebrities and campaigner, Yao Ming.
(Image: A baby rhino and an adult rhino. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the BBC World Service. This is Helena Merriman with the |
| 0:06.4 | inquiry. This week, how do you save the rhino? |
| 0:15.0 | Night time on the border of Mozambique. |
| 0:18.0 | A group of men in night vision goggles slip into South Africa. |
| 0:22.0 | They enter Kruger National Park, one of the largest game reserves |
| 0:26.3 | in Africa, home to Lion, Cheetah, an elephant. But these men are after something else. Rhino. |
| 0:35.0 | Former trackers, it doesn't take them long to pick up a trail. |
| 0:41.0 | Over days and nights they hunt for the rhino, until one morning they see it, a solitary |
| 0:47.3 | male. They dart it and it falls to the ground. They know they don't have much time. There could be |
| 0:55.8 | rangers nearby who will shoot them on site. So the poachers pick up their axes |
| 1:00.4 | walk towards the rhino, and get to work. |
| 1:05.0 | Six days later, Rangers from the park come across the de-horned rhino. |
| 1:12.0 | It's lying on its side, still alive. |
| 1:15.0 | It's lost so much blood from its face, they know it won't last much longer. |
| 1:20.0 | Meanwhile, the poachers are back in Mozambique, $5,000 richer. |
| 1:25.0 | It's a lot of money in one of the poorest countries in the world, but further along the |
| 1:30.8 | chain, the value of the horn goes up. |
| 1:34.4 | In fact, were the rhino's horn made of gold, |
| 1:37.7 | it would be worth less than its real one. |
| 1:40.8 | And by the time it reaches its destination, Vietnam, a single horn can be worth $500,000. |
| 1:47.0 | It's why the Rhinoino is in trouble. |
| 1:53.0 | Back in 2007, only 13 South African rhinos were poached. |
... |
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