Only three northern white rhinos left. Can we save the rhinos?
One of four northern white rhinoceroses聽left on Earth was euthanized Sunday at her home at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, said the聽.
Nola, a 41-year-old, 4,000-pound rhino, was first聽, after being captured from the wild in Sudan at the age of two and spending time at a Czech zoo.
Northern white rhinos were declared extinct in the wild in 2008, primarily because of poaching. Now the three remaining rhinos live in captivity at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.
There are about and 5,000 black rhinos living in Africa, and between 50 and 60 Javan rhinos living in Southeast Asia, the Save the Rhino conservation group reports.
As awareness increases and technology improves, several steps have been taken to end poaching of both elephants and rhinos.
A team of researchers from King鈥檚 College London, University College London and London鈥檚 Metropolitan Police has come up with a fingerprint powder that can聽retrieve poachers鈥� fingerprints from elephant tusks, 海角大神 reported earlier this month.聽
And this March, the Tanzanian government launched an anti-poaching operation dubbed Spidernet that resulted in a number of arrests of wildlife poachers, including Ms. Yang Feng Glan, a Chinese restaurateur in Tanzania who is accused of leading one of Africa鈥檚 biggest ivory-smuggling rings, The Monitor reported.
The Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit, a 26-member South African ranger group composed mostly of women, accepted the United Nations鈥� top environmental award in September, the Champions of the Earth Award, for fighting illegal wildlife trade at the community level.聽
鈥淚n my community, a lot of people kill wild animals, [and] I said to myself, enough is enough,鈥� Collet Ngobeni, a member of the Black Mambas, told The Monitor. 鈥淚 have to stand up, [and] teach people how important nature is, because of the love of nature that I have.聽
But the success of the Black Mambas calls attention to the need for more local action against the economic incentives of poaching, and simultaneous local support for the intrinsic value of substantial rhino populations. Because regardless of international poaching success, local poachers have consistently valued economic opportunity over rhino viability.聽
鈥淭he scarcity of rhinos today and the corresponding intermittent availability of rhino horn only drives the price higher, and intensifies the pressure on the declining rhino populations,鈥� the Save the Rhino group explains. 鈥淔or people whose annual income is often far below the subsistence level, by killing an animal that they don鈥檛 value is overwhelming.鈥�
Some experts say the best way to end poaching is to offer other economic opportunities for locals. For example, the tusk of a single elephant can weight up to 250 pounds, and one pound of ivory on the black market can yield $1,500 鈥� in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a life-changing opportunity.聽
鈥淭he white rhinos represent the wild places and prehistoric animals that are still with us,鈥� Steve Metzler, interim associate curator of mammals at the San Diego Zoo, told the San Diego-Union Tribune. 鈥淚t is devastating to think that in just a few hundred years, . That is just wrong, and we need to do something about it.鈥�
