Nature & Animals Rhino horns made radioactive to foil traffickers in South African project

[LeonardoBjj]

Isotopes can be detected at airports and borders even in large containers and are harmless to the animals

A South African university has launched an anti-poaching campaign to inject the horns of rhinoceroses with radioactive isotopes that it says are harmless for the animals but can be detected by customs agents.

Under the collaborative project involving the University of the Witwatersrand, nuclear energy officials and conservationists, five rhinos were injected in what the university hopes will be the start of a mass injection of the declining rhino population, which they are calling the Rhisotope Project.

Last year, about 20 rhinos at a sanctuary were injected with isotopes in trials that paved the way for Thursday’s launch. The radioactive isotopes even at low levels can be recognised by radiation detectors at airports and borders, leading to the arrest of poachers and traffickers.

Researchers at Witwatersrand’s Radiation and Health Physics Unit said tests conducted in the pilot study confirmed that the radioactive material was not harmful to the rhinos.

“We have demonstrated, beyond scientific doubt, that the process is completely safe for the animal and effective in making the horn detectable through international customs nuclear security systems,” said James Larkin, chief scientific officer at the Rhisotope Project.

“Even a single horn with significantly lower levels of radioactivity than what will be used in practice successfully triggered alarms in radiation detectors,” said Larkin.

The tests also found that horns could be detected inside full 40-foot shipping containers, he said.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that the global rhino population was about 500,000 at the beginning of the 20th century but has now declined to approximately 27,000 because of demand for rhino horns on the hidden market.

South Africa has the largest population of rhinos with an estimated 16,000 but has high levels of poaching and about 500 rhinos are killed for their horns every year.

The university has urged private wildlife park owners and national conservation authorities to have their rhinos injected.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-to-foil-traffickers-in-south-african-project

 

[Flower2dPeople]

This is how it starts.

 

[Ara tech]

Poaching is not a problem but an economy in itself tied to smuggling mostly and to clandestine medicine partly.

Without a program of trained and armed rangers, that cost money, vehicules and drones, it is hard to fight against poachers. In fact, poverty is the problem, with greed,

Millions of dollars spent to save endangered species in shitty third world countries, but not for hunger, thirst, poverty, education, and healthcare.

If you are broke in a third world shitty country, you become a poacher, because it's all that life gave you, you do not care about elephants or rhino getting erased from the eco-system, getting two meals a day is to you a great win, and your only concern. Can't blame them.

 

[Stoic1]

Poaching is not a problem but an economy in itself tied to smuggling mostly and to clandestine medicine partly.

Without a program of trained and armed rangers, that cost money, vehicules and drones, it is hard to fight against poachers. In fact, poverty is the problem, with greed,

Millions of dollars spent to save endangered species in shitty third world countries, but not for hunger, thirst, poverty, education, and healthcare.

If you are broke in a third world shitty country, you become a poacher, because it's all that life gave you, you do not care about elephants or rhino getting erased from the eco-system, getting two meals a day is to you a great win, and your only concern. Can't blame them.

Solution: cure poverty.

So easy. Let's just do that instead.

 

[Ara tech]

Solution: cure poverty.

So easy. Let's just do that instead.

There is often no simple solution to a complex problem when the complex problem is not a problem but a consequence of others problems.

It is better to save endangered species by a priority list, if all rhinos of earth are erased from the surface of the earth, we will survive, but not with bees who are more important and snakes with venom who has a huge healthcare potential.

Investing millions or billions to save some animals when millions and billions are living be low the poverty line, you are basically telling them that animals are more important than them.

Animals in a country can attract tourists and thus sustain Tourism, so they are an economy. Poaching is an economy as well. So you have two economies, and when you make a small army of rangers, their training, their equipments & vehicules, to fight poachers, you create by yourself a third economy.

The problem with poor country is corruption, for example, a corrupt leader in power would like to see his subjects poor forever, as it will allow him to receive considerable amount of money yearly from humanitarian help. So humanitarian help is another economy.

And the less Rhinos alive, the more the price of poaching them will increase, the more rangers and police and military deploy, by increasing the risk, you increase the reward for poachers to continue killing them.

This why the average joe cannot solve large scale problems, his disability to make sacrifice, and to weight the pros with the cons blind him.

I will move to another thread, I do not care about rhinos at all.

 

[Michaelangelo]

retards with broken dicks support this black market smh

 

[TribalDrumz]

Fuck China