In theory, one might think that this is not good news. After all, if rhino and lions are being bred, surely this is to replace wild populations or similar work?
Unfortunately not. Lions bred in South Africa, are initially usually used as photo props for tourists to have pictures taken with the species. However, when they get too old for this work, they are sold to cannned lion hunts. This is where a lion (remember, it has been petted, so it sees humans as friendly) is released into a relatively small wilderness (usually not more than a few tens of square miles, in order to be so called hunted by wealthy foreigners.
This is also not a brave hunt, the animal is usually shot from the back of a vehicle, and there are back-up shooters to kill the animal, should the tourist miss, or get charged by the lion in question. It is perhaps a little different in a place like the Selous, where the hunting usually takes place on foot, and while there is still backup, the hunt is more fair to the lion (this I hasten to say, is not stating that I approve, far from it, but at least here the lion is wild and has lived that way for often several years).
Now, the end of the canned lion hunt was 5 years ago (the South African government effectively banned canned hunting by requiring an animal to roam free for two years before it could be hunted, severely restricting breeders and hunters’ profitability – a perfectly fair move) and this largely removed any place for the lions to go. This has meant that too many lions were being bred. Even if the lions were capable of being released, the only habitats that are generally unclaimed, lie within the West and centre of Africa, and here the subspecies is the Asiatic lion (odd name for a species where much of its range is in Africa). This is a positive move.
So why has the government banned the breeding of white rhino? This is very simple, these farms are also not run to release rhino back into the wild, to the contrary, these rhino are being bred in the hope that rhino horn sales will become legal again, at which point some of the big farms, would have perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars worth of rhino horn.
In September of 2023, AfricanParks took ownership of a huge rhino breeding facility, in South Africa north-west province. This place currently holds around 2000 white rhino, which is more than can be found in any one reserve (here were an estimated 1,850 (between 1,711 and 1,988) white rhinos in Kruger by the end of 2022, compared to the 2,250 (between 1,986 and 2,513) counted in 2021).
AfricanParks aims to rewild them. I reported about this purchase at the time (click here to read the article), and as promised at the time, they hope to release these rhino back into the wild over the next few years, though the hope is to make sure that where they go, they will be safe.
The Kruger would have been a possible place in the past, but poaching has decimated the population over the last decade, so unless the poaching is under control it would be a waste. What do I mean by decimate? Well in 2007 over 21,000 white rhino lived in the wilds of Africa, with as high as 80% of these living in the Kruger, suggesting that they have lost around 15,000 white rhino since.
We must end this situation. Currently, rhino horn is worth around $7,529/kg, which with an average weight means that the average rhino horn is worth $30,000 (it should be noted that the worth can be up to $17,000, which means that the rhino horn of one white rhino could go up to $70,000, which is 42 months of an average South African salary (however, the minimum salary works out at around $200 per month, which means that this is actually around 12 years of a persons salary).
Rhino need to be heavily protected, but we must also squash the markets for the white rhino horn in China and Vietnam – The Chi Campaign was developed to change the behaviour of the most prolific user of rhino horn in Vietnam. Since launching, the campaign has reached a large section of its target audience, showing a promising sign that it is beginning to alter behaviour.
Should rhino horn demand disappear, we will then be able to recover the wild rhinos. We could potentially return Southern white rhino to places in the Northern white rhino range (genetic differences between subspecies here (as normal) is roughly 0.001%).
It has been proved, time and again that there is no medical effect of consuming rhino horn. As such these fascinating creatures should be left to live on the plains across Africa. I have been within meters of wild white rhino (with trained professionals), and I want to be able to have my children experience the same.