TRAVELLIVE MAGAZINE Travellive 03-2016 | Page 131

C ountless methods and ideas have been introduced to protect these animals. They’ve increased the number of guards, set up more cameras, injected poison into horns, and have even sawed the rhino horns to make them useless to poachers. If you visit rhino the conservancy in Kruger forest, you will see rhino calves traumatized by their mothers’ deaths. These “babies” are brought there and fed with bottles of milk. They are kept in a stable with a mature female rhino so that they can be acquainted with their new mother. When the breast-feeding period passes, the mother and her little rhi no will be released to the forest. Healthy rhinos living in the areas with high density hunting are taken to the transfer station and sent to less dangerous areas. However rough, clumsy, and slow rhinos seem to be, they have extremely sensitive skin, and at 40 mph (60kph) they can run 3 times faster than the world’s fastest human. Rhino’s skin looks stiff, but it is soft and very sensitive to insects. That’s the reason rhinos love soaking in water; to protect their skin from being bitten. The only thing this good natured creature does is eat grass; nevertheless, nowadays, their peaceful lives are threatened by poachers who are eager to saw off their horns and cut out their genitals to sell in Asia. of extinction. Meanwhile, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) confirmed that the West African black rhinos have disappeared completely as neither people nor equipment have detected them since 2006. Africa is not so hot, poor, and full of evils as people think. You must visit it yourself to realize how beautiful and rich this continent is with its endless grasslands stretching to the horizon and countless animals such as lions, leopards, zebras, gazelles, and rhinos. However, within 100 years, the number of northern white rhinos has decreased from 2,000 to 15 in 1984, and as of 2016, the World Wild Fund has only one surviving male white rhino on record. Poachers are pushing rhinos toward the brink Strongly believing rhino horns to be a panacea, wealthy Asians won’t stop demanding this pseudo-scientific elixir while Africa has made every effort to save the last remaining rhinos on our planet. The increased demand of rhinos is the main cause for the threat of extinction. What can we do now when the Vietnamese demand is still so high and poachers are doing everything they can to make a fortune selling rhino horns? What can we do now to save the last wild land of the Earth? TRAVELLIVE 131