![]() ![]() The international trade in rhino horn has been banned since 1977, regulated by the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), but individual countries determine their own laws that allow or prohibit its sale domestically, according to Save the Rhino. There are believed to be fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos, and fewer than 68 Javan rhinos – both considered to be critically endangered species. This South African student is fighting animal poaching using wildlife photosĪccording to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), there are an estimated 20,000 white rhinos, 5,000 black rhinos and 3,500 greater one-horn rhinos left alive. A rhino being dehorned in an attempt to protect it from being poached Neville Kgaugelo Ngomane ![]() a tuft of hair, albeit a hugely expensive one that is easily replicated, should rattle the end customer and make him consider spending good money on it,” Vollrath said, by email.Neville Kgaugelo Ngomane's winning photo. “It’s a black market already and dodgy entrepreneurs will find ways… Exposing the rhino horn for what it is i.e. If fakes do infiltrate the market, the question is whether buyers will eventually become conscious enough to avoid them. In a statement on the Oxford website, Vollrath said, “We leave it to others to develop this technology further with the aim to confuse the trade, depress prices and thus support rhino conservation.” Questions over effectiveness The composition and the method of preparation should be the same for Indian and African rhinos, co-lead author Fritz Vollrath, professor of zoology at Oxford, told The Indian Express in reply to a question. The composite they created is easily moulded into a “rhino horn copy” with a microstructure that, when cut and polished, is remarkably similar to that of the real horn, they said. In order to confuse the market, the authors stressed, plausible copies should be simple to produce while being similar. These sample structures, they have reported, were similar to real rhino horn in look, feel and properties, as shown by analytical studies. The scientists relied on the horse, which is the rhino’s near relative, bundled together its tail hairs and glued them together with a matrix of regenerated silk. Unlike the horn of a cow, at the core of which is live bone, the rhino’s horn is actually a tuft of hair that grows, tightly packed, and glued together on the nose by a mass of cells and fluid. ![]() They have suggested that the method will provide a blueprint to create “credible fakes” that could eventually flood the rhino horn market. Scientists from the University of Oxford and Fudan University, Shanghai, have described their method in a paper published on Friday in the journal Scientific Reports. The proposal has been met with incredulity by rhino conservation experts in India. They have described a method for creating fake “rhino horns” using horse hair, and suggested that if the market could be flooded with these, then the demand for real rhino horns would go down. Now, researchers have proposed a solution - fake horns. In Chinese traditional medicine, the rhino horn is believed to have medicinal and other health benefits, including working as an aphrodisiac - an idea that remains a threat to rhino populations. THE MAIN reason why rhinos of all species are poached, including the one-horned Indian rhinoceros found mostly in Assam, is that there is a market for its horn. ![]() ![]()
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