Vietnam’s Craving For Rhino Horn is Pushing Animal to Brink of Extinction

[kingwilly]

Vietnam’s Craving For Rhino Horn is Pushing Animal to Brink of Extinction

Hanoi. Nguyen Huong Giang loves to party but loathes hangovers, so she ends her whiskey benders by tossing back shots of rhino horn ground with water on a special ceramic plate.

Her father gave her the 10-centimeter brown horn as a gift, claiming it cures everything from headaches to cancer. Vietnam has become so obsessed with the fingernail-like substance it now sells for more than cocaine.

“I don’t know how much it costs,” said Giang, 24, after showing off the horn in her high-rise apartment overlooking the capital, Hanoi. “I only know that it’s expensive.”

Experts say Vietnam’s surging demand is threatening to wipe out the world’s remaining rhinoceros population, which recovered from the brink of extinction after the 1970s thanks to conservation campaigns. Illegal killings in Africa hit the highest recorded level in 2011 and are expected to worsen this year.

This week South Africa called for renewed cooperation with Vietnam after a “shocking number” of rhinos have already been reported dead this year.

China has long valued rhino horn for its purported, though unproven, medicinal properties, but US officials and international wildlife experts now say Vietnam’s recent intense craving, blamed partly on a widespread rumor that rhino horn cures cancer, is putting unprecedented pressure on the world’s estimated 28,000 remaining animals, mainly in South Africa.

“It’s a very dire situation,” Dan Ashe, director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said by telephone. “We have very little cushion for these populations in the wild.”

Although data on the global rhino horn trade is scarce, poaching in Africa has soared in the past two years, with American officials saying China and Vietnam are driving the trade that has no “significant” end market in the United States.

The rhino horn craze offers bigger payoffs than other exotic wildlife products such as bear bile or tiger bone paste.

American officials say the crushed powder fetches up to $55,000 per kilogram in Asia; a price that can top the US street value of cocaine, making the hoof-like substance literally as valuable as gold.

Vietnam wiped out its own last known Javan rhinoceros in 2010, despite the country’s earlier efforts to protect it. The last of the population was found dead in a national park, shot through the leg with its horn hacked off.

Tran Dang Trung, who manages a zoo outside Hanoi that imported four white rhinos from South Africa, said he worried for the animals’ safety even though the zoo has 24-hour security.

“If thieves wanted to kill the animals and steal their valuable parts, they could,” Trung said recently outside the rhinos’ basketball court-sized outdoor pen.

Officially, no more than 60 horns are legally imported into Vietnam as trophies bagged from South African game farms each year, but international wildlife experts have estimated the actual number of trophy horns taken by Vietnamese nationals from South Africa each year may exceed 100.

Earlier this week, the South African government said it was working with the Vietnamese to stop the potential abuse of hunting permits.

Giang, the young Vietnamese woman who regularly uses rhino horn to prevent hangovers, says she’s unfazed by doctors’ assessments of the substance’s efficacy.

Because Giang only takes rhino horn shots once or twice every three months, she estimates that her horn will last another 10 to 15 years. But once her stash is depleted, there may not be any rhinos left on earth to satisfy her craving.

Associated Press
Vietnam?s Craving For Rhino Horn is Pushing Animal to Brink of Extinction | The Jakarta Globe

[taxexile]

she estimates that her horn will last another 10 to 15 years.

gentleman, form an orderly queue please.

[Butterfly]

Vietnam wiped out its own last known Javan rhinoceros in 2010, despite the country’s earlier efforts to protect it.

another reason why giving a lot of money to SE Asian monkeys is not always a good idea,

The last of the population was found dead in a national park, shot through the leg with its horn hacked off.

jesus,

[kingwilly]

The last of the population was found dead in a national park, shot through the leg with its horn hacked off.
jesus,

Yep, only one population of Javan Rhinos left in the world now, in Indonesia. (approx 40-50 of them in Ujung Kulong National Park).

[kingwilly]

Giang, the young Vietnamese woman who regularly uses rhino horn to prevent hangovers, says she’s unfazed by doctors’ assessments of the substance’s efficacy.

Because Giang only takes rhino horn shots once or twice every three months, she estimates that her horn will last another 10 to 15 years.

Nguyen Huong Giang loves to party but loathes hangovers, so she ends her whiskey benders by tossing back shots of rhino horn ground with water on a special ceramic plate.

Her father gave her the 10-centimeter brown horn as a gift, claiming it cures everything from headaches to cancer. Vietnam has become so obsessed with the fingernail-like substance it now sells for more than cocaine.

“I don’t know how much it costs,” said Giang, 24, after showing off the horn in her high-rise apartment overlooking the capital, Hanoi. “I only know that it’s expensive.”

I find this quite disturbing, it's one thing for an older Chinese person to be consuming traditional Chinese medicines, but for a young, wealthy woman. (and educated, I would assume).

[chitown]

Yep, only one population of Javan Rhinos left in the world now, in Indonesia. (approx 40-50 of them in Ujung Kulong National Park).

Not after TD's Vietnamese readers read your post.

[chitown]

Geeze, it seems it is not just the Vietnamese that are the problem -

Rhinoceros - Rhino Horn Use: Fact vs. Fiction | Nature | PBS

In the Middle Eastern country of Yemen, the horn continues to be coveted by Muslim men, although imports were banned in 1982. The material, whose luster increases with age, is used for the handles of curved daggers called “jambiya,” which are presented to Yemeni boys at age 12. Jambiya are considered a sign of manhood and devotion to the Muslim religion, and are used for personal defense. Yemeni men place great value on the dagger handles, which are commonly studded with jewels. In China, the ornamental use of rhino horn dates back to at least the 7th century AD. Over the centuries, rhino horns have been carved into ceremonial cups, as well as buttons, belt buckles, hair pins, and paperweights.
Far more pervasive, however, is their use in the traditional medicine systems of many Asian countries, from Malaysia and South Korea to India and China, to cure a variety of ailments.

and....

http://www.victoriafalls-guide.net/b...rn-powder.html

40-something supermodel Elle Macpherson has apparently been duped into thinking Rhino horn has medicinal benefits.

Is aging beauty Elle Macpherson ignorant, gullible, or just plain clueless?

In a recent Sunday Times interview by Mark Edmonds, the has-been supermodel outraged wildlife conservationists, activists, and concerned individuals when she casually mentioned that she takes powdered Rhino horn.

[robuzo]

^My understanding is that Yemenis have become much more aware and demand for rhino horn for daggers has dropped.
Yemen No Longer Major Destination for Illegal Rhino Horn | Rhino Horn is NOT Medicine
For the demand for new rhino horn to remain low in Yemen and to avoid an increase in price (which would encourage more poaching of rhinos in Africa) we initiated a publicity campaign on the rhino’s plight and on the importance of using alternative materials.

We held press interviews and gave photographs to journalists on rhino poaching and the rhino horn trade. Posters with Arabic captions covering aspects of rhino conservation were framed and hung at some of Sanaa’s museums and institutes.

Among the pictures on these posters was a copy of the photograph of the religious edict or fatwa written by the grand mufti, which stated that killing rhinos was against the will of God.
---
Thanks, Mufti!
But a clueless supermodel? Ya gotta be kiddin'.

[socal]

Vietnam’s Craving For Rhino Horn is Pushing Animal to Brink of Extinction

Hanoi. Nguyen Huong Giang loves to party but loathes hangovers, so she ends her whiskey benders by tossing back shots of rhino horn ground with water on a special ceramic plate.

Her father gave her the 10-centimeter brown horn as a gift, claiming it cures everything from headaches to cancer. Vietnam has become so obsessed with the fingernail-like substance it now sells for more than cocaine.

“I don’t know how much it costs,” said Giang, 24, after showing off the horn in her high-rise apartment overlooking the capital, Hanoi. “I only know that it’s expensive.”

Experts say Vietnam’s surging demand is threatening to wipe out the world’s remaining rhinoceros population, which recovered from the brink of extinction after the 1970s thanks to conservation campaigns. Illegal killings in Africa hit the highest recorded level in 2011 and are expected to worsen this year.

This week South Africa called for renewed cooperation with Vietnam after a “shocking number” of rhinos have already been reported dead this year.

China has long valued rhino horn for its purported, though unproven, medicinal properties, but US officials and international wildlife experts now say Vietnam’s recent intense craving, blamed partly on a widespread rumor that rhino horn cures cancer, is putting unprecedented pressure on the world’s estimated 28,000 remaining animals, mainly in South Africa.

“It’s a very dire situation,” Dan Ashe, director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said by telephone. “We have very little cushion for these populations in the wild.”

Although data on the global rhino horn trade is scarce, poaching in Africa has soared in the past two years, with American officials saying China and Vietnam are driving the trade that has no “significant” end market in the United States.

The rhino horn craze offers bigger payoffs than other exotic wildlife products such as bear bile or tiger bone paste.

American officials say the crushed powder fetches up to $55,000 per kilogram in Asia; a price that can top the US street value of cocaine, making the hoof-like substance literally as valuable as gold.

Vietnam wiped out its own last known Javan rhinoceros in 2010, despite the country’s earlier efforts to protect it. The last of the population was found dead in a national park, shot through the leg with its horn hacked off.

Tran Dang Trung, who manages a zoo outside Hanoi that imported four white rhinos from South Africa, said he worried for the animals’ safety even though the zoo has 24-hour security.

“If thieves wanted to kill the animals and steal their valuable parts, they could,” Trung said recently outside the rhinos’ basketball court-sized outdoor pen.

Officially, no more than 60 horns are legally imported into Vietnam as trophies bagged from South African game farms each year, but international wildlife experts have estimated the actual number of trophy horns taken by Vietnamese nationals from South Africa each year may exceed 100.

Earlier this week, the South African government said it was working with the Vietnamese to stop the potential abuse of hunting permits.

Giang, the young Vietnamese woman who regularly uses rhino horn to prevent hangovers, says she’s unfazed by doctors’ assessments of the substance’s efficacy.

Because Giang only takes rhino horn shots once or twice every three months, she estimates that her horn will last another 10 to 15 years. But once her stash is depleted, there may not be any rhinos left on earth to satisfy her craving.

Associated Press
Vietnam?s Craving For Rhino Horn is Pushing Animal to Brink of Extinction | The Jakarta Globe

Who cares ? Animals have gone icstinct before..

Are we all a bunch of tree hugging environmentalists now ?

[socal]

Vietnam wiped out its own last known Javan rhinoceros in 2010, despite the country’s earlier efforts to protect it.

another reason why giving a lot of money to SE Asian monkeys is not always a good idea,

The last of the population was found dead in a national park, shot through the leg with its horn hacked off.

jesus,

hahaha you fuckin pussy

Are you an animal rights activist now ?

[kingwilly]

40-something supermodel Elle Macpherson has apparently been duped into thinking Rhino horn has medicinal benefits.

Is aging beauty Elle Macpherson ignorant, gullible, or just plain clueless?

In a recent Sunday Times interview by Mark Edmonds, the has-been supermodel outraged wildlife conservationists, activists, and concerned individuals when she casually mentioned that she takes powdered Rhino horn.

oh no.



as bad as Paris Hilton then.

[Butterfly]

Is aging beauty Elle Macpherson ignorant, gullible, or just plain clueless?

she is dumb as a rock according to a friend who regularly fucked her, but that was 20 years ago

[WujouMao]

So now the Vietnamese have two options, either quit drinking as there will be no Rhinos left to cure the hangover, or clone them like Dolly.

[Mid]

wonder why Thailand got a free pass from the Jakarta Globe

The demand for rhino horns among Asian nations, including Vietnam and Thailand, has pushed the price to at least $60,000 per kilo.

SAF Park at Center of Rhino Poaching Crisis « VOA Breaking News

[superman]

Sorry, made a cock up.

[kingwilly]

wonder why Thailand got a free pass from the Jakarta Globe

The demand for rhino horns among Asian nations, including Vietnam and Thailand, has pushed the price to at least $60,000 per kilo.

SAF Park at Center of Rhino Poaching Crisis « VOA Breaking News

Why indeed, I wonder how big a demand each country has, I wonder about Chinese in Indonesia, Malaysia (stronger law enforcement though), China also play...