[S2000magic]

I think the title would more accurately be "7 billion and estimating".

Still, that's a lot of people: more than double the population of the late 1950s.

[JLOGIC]

mo' peeople mo' problems

[onoway]

32519, on 2012-January-12, 10:14, said:

See my previous post above.

348 Rhinos were poached in South Africa alone for their horns during 2011. The tally for 2012 already stands at 11. It is only a matter of time before the rhino is poached to extinction here as well.

What other income sources do the poachers have? How does that income compare with what they can get (if they don't get caught) from Rhino horns? Does enforcement involve any penalty for the people who are buying it?

[32519]

onoway, on 2012-January-13, 18:36, said:

What other income sources do the poachers have? How does that income compare with what they can get (if they don't get caught) from Rhino horns? Does enforcement involve any penalty for the people who are buying it?

The unemployment rate in Africa (including South Africa) is disproportionally high (40%+ in SA currently), primarily due to low levels of education. This is exacerbated by militant trade unions who blackmail their ANC government buddies with withholding their votes if certain labour laws (that the unions want) aren't pushed through parliament. It has become virtually impossible for big business to fire underperforming employees. Ironically ressions are an opportunity for big business to cut out the dead wood. Unfortunately having done so, they are reluctant to rehire again because of draconion labour laws.

Poaching rhino horns is massively profitable for the unemployed. These guys don't have any other source of income. One rhino horn fetches USD 7500 (R60,000 South African rands). That is a lot of money for the unemployed, which makes it so lucrative.

The people buying the horns are from the East (mostly the Chinese). The poachers enter SA from both Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Both of these countries border on the Kruger National Park, the main area being poached.

Private game lodge owners are going to extraordinary measures to safeguard their own rhinos. They started off with dehorning all their own rhinos. But even that didn't work. The rhino horn stump was still chopped out (with an axe). They have now started drilling holes into the rhinos horns and filling it with an orange coloured poison making the horn useless to any would be poacher. We have yet to see if this works.