National Geographic: The Rhino War (1987) Movie Script
OK, there's the mother.
Now look at this
might pull the skin to the side there.
Yeah.
This is a loft of.
Right, shall we look
for a place to land?
Today in Africa,
a bitter war is being fought.
Both man and beast are dying...
and the enemies are greed,
corruption, and ignorance.
The battle is being waged
over the black rhino, sought by
poachers for its valuable horn
In the past 15 years, over 95%
of the animals
have been slaughtered.
Each day, Ranger Dolf Sasseen
patrols the Zambezi Valley,
But for this mother and calf,
he was too late.
A lot of people would say,
"What does the rhino do to
the bush?"
As a bushman you could
turn around and say,
"The rhino has been created by God
as part of creation,
we need it".
To look at it,
it's a beautiful animal
and we can live side by side.
You do not want to show to
your children one day,
How an elephant or a rhino
look in a storybook.
That's not what life
is all about.
Life is not a storybook
It is a reality.
For 45 million years,
one of the planet's most
primitive mammals wandered
the plains
and forests of the world
with little to fear.
The rhino has few
natural enemies,
but that role has
now been filled by man.
More than 30 species of
rhinoceros once existed.
Today, there are only five,
all endangered.
In Asia, the Javan, Sumatran,
and Indian rhinos
are down to critical levels.
In Africa, the white rhino is
somewhat more stable.
Closely confined in a few well
guarded South African reserves
But the black rhino is hurting
towards extinction.
If, as we say, in
the early 70s,
there were 65,000 rhino
on the continent,
We are down to 4,500 now.
That's an indictment upon
somebody or a group of
people or nations.
It's come down throughout
Africa, this disease,
this cancerous situation,
plundering our wildlife of
Africa.
Through the years,
the black rhino had
already been
depleted through much of
its range.
It is the recent wave of
slaughter, though, which has
devastated the animal.
Starting in the early 70s,
poachers swept through
East Africa,
all but wiping out
the populations of Kenya,
Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia,
and Mozambique.
Now, they have begun
to threaten Zimbabwe.
In 1977, the situation took an
even more severe turn for
the worse
in Kenya's Meru National Park.
In one three month period,
the toll on the rhinos reached 53
and rangers began to
be attacked
and killed by armed
Somali poachers.
Peter Jenkins was the park's
warden during that time.
When I went to the Meru park
we had a population
of black rhino between
and then in the late 70s we
were hit by a different type
of poacher,
this was the shifta poacher
with his automatic.
And when I left Meru '81,
the population was down to
about 25.
Today, it's three.
The beginning of the
rhino's decline can
be traced back to the
mid-nineteenth century.
Modern guns were introduced
into Africa,
And killing became easy,
efficient, and popular.
Some Europeans developed a
taste for rhino meat...
others hunted for the
sheer sport of it.
When a rhino charges a man
that's nothing.
But when a man charges a rhino,
that's new.
So here you see the
tables reversed.
We are now in a with rhinos.
Osa dislikes rhinos more than
any animal on earth.
For years they have been
chasing her and here was
a chance
to give them a taste of their
won medicine.
Mr. Rhino is public enemy
number one in Africa.
He's afraid of nothing.
If your first shot doesn't
stop him, good night.
It is not hunting, however,
that poses the great threat
to the rhinoceros.
Instead, it is the demand for
the horn
Ironically, the very feature
of the animal that evolved for
its defense
may bring about its extinction
Though hard and strong like bone,
the horn is made of keratin,
like the
human fingernail.
It grows throughout the rhinos
life at a rate of about three
inches a year.
On a full grown adult,
it may reach over four feet.
For thousands of years,
rhino horn powder has been a
treasured commodity in
the far east.
Ancient oriental tradition
views it as an
effective fever reducer
and an indispensable cure all.
The use of rhino horn
as an aphrodisiac
has been greatly exaggerated,
and is found only in
parts of western India.
As early as the sixteenth
century, rhino horn powder
was recommended in a classic
encyclopedia of Chinese
medicine, tidily consulted today.
The best horn is from a
freshly killed male.
Black is better than white.
The tip has the most virtue.
Pregnant women should not take
the powder or they will miscarry.
Modern medicine considers the
claims highly unlikely,
and almost all far eastern
countries have officially
banned the importation of
rhino horn.
Still, the local market
flourishes.
In the back street of Taipei,
Bangkok, and other Asian cities,
African rhino horn retails
for up to $7,000 per pound.
For the past decade the export
of rhino horn has been banned
in most African countries,
but smuggling continues,
to the dismay of
conservationists.
Back in the 1970s
when there was very little
effort to control the trade,
the outlets were very diffuse
indeed-going out on aircraft
or boats and perhaps over land
as well.
But nowadays, I think that the
routes have become rather
more confined
and most countries seem to
point a finger at Burundi
as the major exit point
in Africa for rhino horn.
So I believe a
very large proportion
must be going out from
this one country.
But we also know from
countries like Zimbabwe
and Tanzania
that a certain amount of rhino
horn has gone out in
diplomatic pouches.
It's almost certainly an
international
illegal network, if you like,
involving corrupt
government officials,
corrupt businessmen,
and corrupt politicians,
and it's this sort of
triangular Mafia-like alliance
which has made it so powerful.
It's not only affected rhinos,
it's also affected elephants
and ivory-the two are very
closely linked.
Throughout history,
the port of Mombasa,
many kinds of illegal trade.
Rhino horn, leopard skins, gold,
ivory each dealer has
his specialty.
This pile of ivory,
taken from 500 elephants,
was hidden in falsely
labeled spice crates.
It was seized by
Kenyan customs officials
while awaiting shipment
to the Middle East.
The route is an old one,
for thousands of year,
Arab dhows have sailed these waters,
sometimes with valuable
contraband aboard.
In this way, the horn of
countless slaughtered
rhino have made
their way across the sea.
In recent years, the horn has
often ended its journey in
North Yemen.
It is here that one more
damaging twist to the
black rhino story has
been added.
The oil boom of the early 70s
created lucrative work for
migrant Yemeni
laborers in Saudi Arabia
and other Gulf states.
For the first time, the workers
had ready cash to
spend on luxuries,
including the ultimate
symbol of virility,
the rhino horned dagger,
or iambia.
The discovery of the new
threat to the rhino
was made by Kenyan-based
geographer Esmond
Bradley Martin.
I first came to North Yemem
in 1978 when
I was doing a general
sort of survey of the country
and discovered at that time
that perhaps 50% of all the
rhino horn in the world was
coming up here so Sanaa
for the making of
dagger handles.
The rhino horn handle,
once reserved for the
aristocracy,
is treasured far above
alternatives like cow or
water buffalo.
A fine antique may sell for
$15,000.
When polished, the horn takes
on an amber opalescence
greatly admired for
its subtle beauty.
Esmond Bradley Martin began an
international camping to stop
the rhino horn trade,
encouraging the use of
substitutes.
After some 10 years,
his work is showing signs of
success.
International trade has slowed
in many eastern countries,
and since 1985,
the North Yemeni government
has been enforcing a
ban on importation.
But it's not early enough.
Where there is profit,
men will trade.
The middleman, by transporting
the horn from the smuggler to
the dealer, keeps business
going briskly.
I will buy for about
$700 per kilo, and sell
for about $1400 per kilogram,
so I make a profit of
about $700.
The diplomats who smuggle
rhino horn come mostly from
Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan,
South Korea.
I saw rhino in Nairobi.
I like it. I like rhino.
Despite the rhino's size
and fierce reputation,
it is sadly easy to track,
find, and kill.
Its thick hide offers
no protection against
bullets and its behavior
patterns are too predictable
to elude the
determined poacher.
In its simple daily routine,
the black rhino uses
its prehensile
lip to tear off the leaves of
the prickly acacia bushes
and other scrubby plants.
A solitary creature,
it lives on a home range
of from one to
twelve square miles.
The rhino's territory may
overlap with another of
its species,
but it is persistent
in marking its range.
The animals spray urine or
track their dung across the
area, and so, spread their scent
Contrary to appearances,
the rhinoceros is a
peaceful being,
and only rarely takes
exception to the
occasional trespasser.
Although it can hear and
smell acutely
its eyesight is poor.
Help comes in the form of the oxpecker
which serves as a
lookout.
In Swahili the oxpecker is known
as "askair wakifaru",
the rhino's policeman.
When alerted by its tiny bodyguard,
the rhino may panic and run.
But since it is both curious
and nearsighted,
it may be enticed from the
bush, sometimes fatally,
by the human voice mimicking
its call.
The first man to devote
his life to the study of
rhino behavior was
John Goddard.
While living in Tanzania's
Ngorongoro crater during the
affection for his lumbering,
primitive subjects.
Goddard was deeply committed
to his work,
regardless of the hazards.
Even a tranquilized rhino
can be dangerous.
Weighing up to one and a half
tons, an adult bull represents
a serious threat.
Dentine joined in
P2 between cusps.
Watch it!
Alright, P3 dentine almost
joined between cusps.
For seven years, Goddard
carried out exhaustive field
work, recording each minute
feature of the rhino's
appearance and behavior.
Sixteen years after Goddard's
own death at the age of 35,
the number of rhino
in his research area
had plummeted from 108 to
about 20.
Many were the victims of
poachers.
In the vast expanse of
East Africa's Savannah,
protection of the rhino
has proved impossible.
Bob Oguya, warden of Kenya's
Meru Park since 1983,
has one plane and 30 men
to patrol 350 square miles.
The problem we are facing is
that these fellows with
their automatics,
and our people with singly
action 303s it is watch them
and in most cases we lost them,
because with their type of
firearm and with our types of
firearms they end up escaping
our dragnet.
The rangers are at
serious personal risk from
the armed poachers.
Their camel patrols stay out
for weeks at a time,
in touch only by radio with
park headquarters.
Despite the men's vulnerability
and outdated equipment,
they are dedicated and loyal-even
in the face of tragedy.
In December we lost our
sergeant to the
poacher's bullets.
We saw him die.
Without adequate weapons
we were helpless.
Too many of our men have fallen
because we could not
defend ourselves.
If we had automatics instead
of 303s we wouldn't be losing
our people.
With the rhino population at
such critical levels
throughout Africa,
every animal is important.
In Kenya's Masia Mara Reserve,
rangers mounted round the clock
protection for this mother
and calf,
shooting several lions who
came too close.
Worried, the rangers moved the
family to safer ground.
The calf was better protected,
but his mother kept trying to
get back to her old territory,
leaving her baby open to
attack.
The lions seized their chance.
After the incident,
the rangers turned
to Daphne Sheldrick,
who raises wounded and
orphaned animals
On one of the occasions that
she was away the lions got in
and they caught him and
actually made a real mess
of him.
Fortunately, they were young
lions and they weren't
very experienced.
But they certainly chewed
him up very,
very badly and he was dumped
on my doorstep more
dead than alive.
I must say he's fantastically
plucky little rhino.
In fact, his mother's a
very placid, dozy old cow
so I expect this had made him
have to be slightly more alert
The first thing we had to do,
of course was get a friend,
because he'd been through
tremendous trauma,
so we got the sheep.
They've been good friends ever
since and wherever Sam goes,
so the sheep follows and
they play together and
wander around together
and he'll just grow up here
until he's weaned off milk,
and then we'll have to send
him somewhere to be a
wild rhino.
Little Sam was lucky.
These rangers saved his life.
Other rhinos have been
less fortunate,
poached by the very men paid
to protect them.
The shadow of corruption has
fallen across much of Africa,
and Kenya has had her share
of officials
who have cashed in on
illegal rhino horn trade.
It became so bad during the
late 1970s
that a major international
scandal, Centering on the
president's wife, erupted and
as a result of that,
The Kenyan government
was so severely embarrassed
that it closed trade
in all wildlife products,
and that did have
a very needed effect
on the revival of certain species.
But the two species which
showed no revival whatsoever
were the main trophy species,
elephants and rhino,
and by the early 1980s,
it became clear once again
that major elements within the
Wildlife Department
ex-Game Department people,
that is Perez Olindo,
who was the former director
of the National Park Service,
and this has created a
tremendous enthusiasm
throughout Kenya, and we feel
that this is just in
time to revive
what is our most important
effort, and that is a major
plan to save the
rhinos in Kenya.
The problem of human beings
is everywhere.
We have found people who are
colluding with
criminal elements.
They have been prosecuted,
they have been imprisoned.
And I'm afraid that I cannot,
and I will not,
compromise with or collude
with people who are out to do
things that will
harm conservation and wildlife
in this country.
We cannot compromise with sin,
I'm afraid.
The sin is not always hard
to understand.
Within the poverty stricken
rural communities of Africa,
there is a powerful incentive
to poach
A family may be lucky to earn
$20 a month.
Each member of a
rhino poaching
gang may earn $100 or $200 per
raid a year's income.
Although the big money is made
by the middlemen, dealers,
and corrupt officials,
the pay is bountiful
by local standards.
One Kenyan who has fought
against poaching in a
very personal way
is Michael Werikhe.
Known throughout East Africa
as "the rhino man",
he has walked more than 1400
miles and raised over $60,000
on his crusade to
inform Africans of the threat to
the black rhino.
People are very hospitable,
very concerned about my welfare
not only my welfare alone,
but even that of my snake,
which is a very,
very strange thing.
Africans are very scared of snakes,
and to have people showing
so much concern
about an animal they fear so
much is a very touching thing.
Local people are just as
concerned about the wildlife
and about the environment
just like any other people.
And I think it is very important that
wildlife awareness should be
taken to the people,
for it's they who have the final say
and they are ready
to cooperate,
provided that they are given
the right information,
the right encouragement.
Even with the work of
dedicated men like Werikhe,
Kenya's war to save the wild
rhino has essentially been lost
Now, its best hope for
salvation may be the
fenced sanctuary.
Although critics view them
as glorified zoos,
they are far easier to manage
than the huge reserves.
In some cases, it is private
citizens who have taken up
the cause.
Solio Ranch, in the foothills
of Mount Kenya,
is owned by Courtland and
Claude Parfet
In 1970, using their own funds
they encircled 15,000 acres
with a high cost,
specially designed fence,
creating a haven for Africa's
embattled wildlife.
Over a ten year period,
they introduced 23 black rhino
and 16 whites.
Protected, the animals thrived
In less than 20 years,
the number of black rhino
had quadrupled.
Now Solio had a most unusual
problem overpopulation.
The Parfets gave 15 of
the black rhino
the Kenyan government's first
enclosed sanctuary,
at Nakuru National Park.
Transporting the animals to
their new new home is a
huge undertaking.
The selected rhino are located
from the air.
Okay, dart is in.
Keep it in sight.
It's running south.
A vet walks to within 40 feet
of the unsuspecting animal
before using his
tranquilizer gun.
A new, fast acting drug brings
the rhinoceros down in
minutes, but great care must be
taken to prevent it from
injuring itself.
A second injection of
antibiotics prevents
infections
in the dart gun wound.
Though unceremonious,
this rhino's
awakening is the next step
in his relocation.
The animals are kept in
holding pens
for about two weeks to
overcome the stress of capture.
Soon, though, this young bull
will be in stalled among the
tourists and flamingos of
Nakuru.
It has been a long and
difficult journey for him,
but it is here that he can do
the most to help save
his species.
Although the rhino may be well
protected in
fenced sanctuaries,
the situation creates
another problem-inbreeding.
Wildlife biologist Rob Brett
lives and works in Kenya
on a remote private reserve.
He is closely observing the animals
in an effort to find a solution.
Although rhino have been known
about, wondered at, admired,
hated for such a long period,
We know virtually nothing
about their breeding.
Such basic things as what
turns a rhino on,
what makes them breed at
optimum rates
It's crucial that we find out
as much about this sort of
behavior of rhino
in order to conserve them
under the new conditions
that exist.
Their favorite habitat is bush,
they are generally nocturnal,
they spend most of
the day asleep.
And, to observe the
nitty gritty of rhino
sexual behavior takes first
of all a lot of patience,
and a great deal of interest.
It's really ploying
the minimum of equipment
a mixture between very
low tech. If you like, work,
and very high tech.
I am out at dawn every morning
looking for individual rhino
from which to take data.
So well does Brett know this
subjects that he can identify
every rhino
on the reserve from the lines
and wrinkles of its footprint
He takes urine samples left
from each animal
to determine their hormonal
levels, identifying the
pregnant females and
dominant males.
While the black rhino is
extremely secretive about
its mating habits,
the white rhino, like these
on Solio Ranch,
are less inhibited.
This dominant male has
asserted his influence...
And now begins his courtship,
which may last for many days.
He approaches the female and
rests his head on her rump.
His interest may not be
initially returned.
But his persistence eventually
pays off and mating occurs,
sometimes lasting over an hour
Although rhinos are not
monogamous, the female usually
mates with the dominant male
in the area.
Afterwards, the pair
go their separate ways.
If impregnated, the female
will not give birth
for approximately
only one calf at a time.
A newborn rhino,
which weighs up to 120 pounds,
will stay close to its mother
until she has a new calf
for some two to four years.
The rhinoceros, slow to
reproduce and quick to die,
faces an uphill struggle.
In the wild, there are so few
left that some never find a
suitable mate.
In Kenya and elsewhere,
the fight becomes increasingly
grim and ever more complex.
It can be argued that the
numbers of rhino are very low,
but I think it would be
negligence on behalf of
the world
to just turn their backs
on this country now and say,
"All is lost.
There are only 400 rhino left,
they're not worth saving."
We have had long years of
experience with poaching,
which is what Zimbabwe's
having now armed poachers.
Zimbabwe's getting it
for the first time.
I wonder whether they're
actually gong to be able to
save their rhino
by just having armed patrols
and shootouts.
I know in Kenya that they're
fighting armed gangs there,
and there are
contacts taking place.
But we have, right from the
onset, taken on this task
as a war and not a
conservation exercise
purely and simply.
The situation bears a
more than passing resemblance
to full fledged
guerrilla combat...
It is a deadly serious mission
Glenn Tatham commands
Operation Stronghold
from a camp on the
Zambezi River in Zimbabwe,
where he protects the last
large wild rhino population
left in the world.
The project involved moving
one third of the
valley's population,
to safer ground.
The fight to protect the
rest is a desperate one.
Rangers live year round in
camp with their families.
who realize that some of the
men may die in armed conflict.
What we're doing here is
to fight the poachers.
Every day that a group of
poachers are in here,
they are potentially able to
kill two or three or
maybe even four rhino.
One group killed six rhino
one morning here,
here in the Zambezi Valley.
To our north is Zambia,
and these poachers are
crossing from there to here.
The river is the
international boundary
but there is no
barrier as such.
There's two border posts
on that section of the river.
We cannot cover 150 miles of
river frontage every day of
the year, It's an impossibility.
You'd need more than a
division of men to do that.
Even then because of the bush
warfare we'd be fighting,
it's an impossibility.
As in Kenya, the odds are staggering,
and the
danger is real.
Operation Stronghold has just Many
of the rangers are
veterans from opposite sides
of Zimbabwe's war of independence,
now fighting together
against a common enemy.
Facing heavily armed
Zambian-based poachers,
the rangers shoot to kill
with the government's consent.
Since 1985, more than 30
poachers have been shot dead,
and at least 20 taken prisoner
In the same period,
some 330 rhino have died.
Until the network of dealers
and middlemen is broken,
Zimbabwe's rangers know they
can do little more than stem
the tide.
Privately, many wonder how long
it can go on.
We've got people here who've
been in the bush for two years,
they go out for 20 days in
a month, they occasionally have
success, But it's very very...
demanding on them physically,
It's demanding on
their families, its demanding
of their well-being.
They are buoyed up
with enthusiasm every time
you have a successful contact,
and perhaps this is a
good enough reason to
have a contact,
is to boost enthusiasm,
If no other reason.
You have captured,
you have recovered
one and what direction is
the other poacher running to?
No problem, as soon as the
chopper arrives we will get
into your...
I guess the big thing is now,
is to get all the others,
if he's gonna be on the ground
for too long I'll have to go
fly over and pick him up...
One down, one running.
Okay, can't we get them in
and start leap-frogging them?
The support units are on their
way now and...
And the one, as I said,
had been shot in the groin,
was in fact bleeding.
I don't know how, in fact,
he got as far as he had.
He scrabbled about 15 paces
on his stomach and died there.
It all happened so
very quickly.
One tends just to pick up
little images
of what was happening rather
than as an overall thing.
You get images of rounds from
the people behind you,
the expended cartridge cases
landing on your head.
The gang had killed four rhino
in as many days.
Each poacher had risked his
life for a few hundred dollars.
The rangers know that Zimbabwe
is the last stand for
the wild black rhino.
Still, the dilemma they face
is a terrible one.
One often wonders about the
human life for a rhino life,
And at this stage it's a
human life for about 20 rhino lives.
The morality is
perhaps secondary to the fact
that there doesn't seem
to be any other way in which
we can in fact stop
these blokes from getting away
and getting back.
A group of poachers would come
into the country,
they'll start killing rhinos.
We've got to react to that,
and one must never forget
the central objective of
this whole exercise,
this whole operation,
is save the rhino
We are not manhunters,
we're not mercenaries.
We are here as
conservationists.
But desperate situations
require desperate measures.
No, there's no joy in
killing people, but it's a job,
and quite obviously, we're just
pawns on either side
for men who are
just exploiting people
to make themselves rich.
Forty five million years of
nature, unraveled by man
in an evolutionary microsecond
Still, the rhinoceros
can still be saved.
If a major international
effort were mounted to
stop the poachers, the rhino
would almost certainly bounce
back.
But until the incentive
to kill is removed
the profit for the poachers,
middlemen and dealers the
battle will go on.
If the fight is lost,
the rhino will be doomed
to exist only as a drawing in
a child's picture book
of things that once were
and are no more.
Now look at this
might pull the skin to the side there.
Yeah.
This is a loft of.
Right, shall we look
for a place to land?
Today in Africa,
a bitter war is being fought.
Both man and beast are dying...
and the enemies are greed,
corruption, and ignorance.
The battle is being waged
over the black rhino, sought by
poachers for its valuable horn
In the past 15 years, over 95%
of the animals
have been slaughtered.
Each day, Ranger Dolf Sasseen
patrols the Zambezi Valley,
But for this mother and calf,
he was too late.
A lot of people would say,
"What does the rhino do to
the bush?"
As a bushman you could
turn around and say,
"The rhino has been created by God
as part of creation,
we need it".
To look at it,
it's a beautiful animal
and we can live side by side.
You do not want to show to
your children one day,
How an elephant or a rhino
look in a storybook.
That's not what life
is all about.
Life is not a storybook
It is a reality.
For 45 million years,
one of the planet's most
primitive mammals wandered
the plains
and forests of the world
with little to fear.
The rhino has few
natural enemies,
but that role has
now been filled by man.
More than 30 species of
rhinoceros once existed.
Today, there are only five,
all endangered.
In Asia, the Javan, Sumatran,
and Indian rhinos
are down to critical levels.
In Africa, the white rhino is
somewhat more stable.
Closely confined in a few well
guarded South African reserves
But the black rhino is hurting
towards extinction.
If, as we say, in
the early 70s,
there were 65,000 rhino
on the continent,
We are down to 4,500 now.
That's an indictment upon
somebody or a group of
people or nations.
It's come down throughout
Africa, this disease,
this cancerous situation,
plundering our wildlife of
Africa.
Through the years,
the black rhino had
already been
depleted through much of
its range.
It is the recent wave of
slaughter, though, which has
devastated the animal.
Starting in the early 70s,
poachers swept through
East Africa,
all but wiping out
the populations of Kenya,
Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia,
and Mozambique.
Now, they have begun
to threaten Zimbabwe.
In 1977, the situation took an
even more severe turn for
the worse
in Kenya's Meru National Park.
In one three month period,
the toll on the rhinos reached 53
and rangers began to
be attacked
and killed by armed
Somali poachers.
Peter Jenkins was the park's
warden during that time.
When I went to the Meru park
we had a population
of black rhino between
and then in the late 70s we
were hit by a different type
of poacher,
this was the shifta poacher
with his automatic.
And when I left Meru '81,
the population was down to
about 25.
Today, it's three.
The beginning of the
rhino's decline can
be traced back to the
mid-nineteenth century.
Modern guns were introduced
into Africa,
And killing became easy,
efficient, and popular.
Some Europeans developed a
taste for rhino meat...
others hunted for the
sheer sport of it.
When a rhino charges a man
that's nothing.
But when a man charges a rhino,
that's new.
So here you see the
tables reversed.
We are now in a with rhinos.
Osa dislikes rhinos more than
any animal on earth.
For years they have been
chasing her and here was
a chance
to give them a taste of their
won medicine.
Mr. Rhino is public enemy
number one in Africa.
He's afraid of nothing.
If your first shot doesn't
stop him, good night.
It is not hunting, however,
that poses the great threat
to the rhinoceros.
Instead, it is the demand for
the horn
Ironically, the very feature
of the animal that evolved for
its defense
may bring about its extinction
Though hard and strong like bone,
the horn is made of keratin,
like the
human fingernail.
It grows throughout the rhinos
life at a rate of about three
inches a year.
On a full grown adult,
it may reach over four feet.
For thousands of years,
rhino horn powder has been a
treasured commodity in
the far east.
Ancient oriental tradition
views it as an
effective fever reducer
and an indispensable cure all.
The use of rhino horn
as an aphrodisiac
has been greatly exaggerated,
and is found only in
parts of western India.
As early as the sixteenth
century, rhino horn powder
was recommended in a classic
encyclopedia of Chinese
medicine, tidily consulted today.
The best horn is from a
freshly killed male.
Black is better than white.
The tip has the most virtue.
Pregnant women should not take
the powder or they will miscarry.
Modern medicine considers the
claims highly unlikely,
and almost all far eastern
countries have officially
banned the importation of
rhino horn.
Still, the local market
flourishes.
In the back street of Taipei,
Bangkok, and other Asian cities,
African rhino horn retails
for up to $7,000 per pound.
For the past decade the export
of rhino horn has been banned
in most African countries,
but smuggling continues,
to the dismay of
conservationists.
Back in the 1970s
when there was very little
effort to control the trade,
the outlets were very diffuse
indeed-going out on aircraft
or boats and perhaps over land
as well.
But nowadays, I think that the
routes have become rather
more confined
and most countries seem to
point a finger at Burundi
as the major exit point
in Africa for rhino horn.
So I believe a
very large proportion
must be going out from
this one country.
But we also know from
countries like Zimbabwe
and Tanzania
that a certain amount of rhino
horn has gone out in
diplomatic pouches.
It's almost certainly an
international
illegal network, if you like,
involving corrupt
government officials,
corrupt businessmen,
and corrupt politicians,
and it's this sort of
triangular Mafia-like alliance
which has made it so powerful.
It's not only affected rhinos,
it's also affected elephants
and ivory-the two are very
closely linked.
Throughout history,
the port of Mombasa,
many kinds of illegal trade.
Rhino horn, leopard skins, gold,
ivory each dealer has
his specialty.
This pile of ivory,
taken from 500 elephants,
was hidden in falsely
labeled spice crates.
It was seized by
Kenyan customs officials
while awaiting shipment
to the Middle East.
The route is an old one,
for thousands of year,
Arab dhows have sailed these waters,
sometimes with valuable
contraband aboard.
In this way, the horn of
countless slaughtered
rhino have made
their way across the sea.
In recent years, the horn has
often ended its journey in
North Yemen.
It is here that one more
damaging twist to the
black rhino story has
been added.
The oil boom of the early 70s
created lucrative work for
migrant Yemeni
laborers in Saudi Arabia
and other Gulf states.
For the first time, the workers
had ready cash to
spend on luxuries,
including the ultimate
symbol of virility,
the rhino horned dagger,
or iambia.
The discovery of the new
threat to the rhino
was made by Kenyan-based
geographer Esmond
Bradley Martin.
I first came to North Yemem
in 1978 when
I was doing a general
sort of survey of the country
and discovered at that time
that perhaps 50% of all the
rhino horn in the world was
coming up here so Sanaa
for the making of
dagger handles.
The rhino horn handle,
once reserved for the
aristocracy,
is treasured far above
alternatives like cow or
water buffalo.
A fine antique may sell for
$15,000.
When polished, the horn takes
on an amber opalescence
greatly admired for
its subtle beauty.
Esmond Bradley Martin began an
international camping to stop
the rhino horn trade,
encouraging the use of
substitutes.
After some 10 years,
his work is showing signs of
success.
International trade has slowed
in many eastern countries,
and since 1985,
the North Yemeni government
has been enforcing a
ban on importation.
But it's not early enough.
Where there is profit,
men will trade.
The middleman, by transporting
the horn from the smuggler to
the dealer, keeps business
going briskly.
I will buy for about
$700 per kilo, and sell
for about $1400 per kilogram,
so I make a profit of
about $700.
The diplomats who smuggle
rhino horn come mostly from
Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan,
South Korea.
I saw rhino in Nairobi.
I like it. I like rhino.
Despite the rhino's size
and fierce reputation,
it is sadly easy to track,
find, and kill.
Its thick hide offers
no protection against
bullets and its behavior
patterns are too predictable
to elude the
determined poacher.
In its simple daily routine,
the black rhino uses
its prehensile
lip to tear off the leaves of
the prickly acacia bushes
and other scrubby plants.
A solitary creature,
it lives on a home range
of from one to
twelve square miles.
The rhino's territory may
overlap with another of
its species,
but it is persistent
in marking its range.
The animals spray urine or
track their dung across the
area, and so, spread their scent
Contrary to appearances,
the rhinoceros is a
peaceful being,
and only rarely takes
exception to the
occasional trespasser.
Although it can hear and
smell acutely
its eyesight is poor.
Help comes in the form of the oxpecker
which serves as a
lookout.
In Swahili the oxpecker is known
as "askair wakifaru",
the rhino's policeman.
When alerted by its tiny bodyguard,
the rhino may panic and run.
But since it is both curious
and nearsighted,
it may be enticed from the
bush, sometimes fatally,
by the human voice mimicking
its call.
The first man to devote
his life to the study of
rhino behavior was
John Goddard.
While living in Tanzania's
Ngorongoro crater during the
affection for his lumbering,
primitive subjects.
Goddard was deeply committed
to his work,
regardless of the hazards.
Even a tranquilized rhino
can be dangerous.
Weighing up to one and a half
tons, an adult bull represents
a serious threat.
Dentine joined in
P2 between cusps.
Watch it!
Alright, P3 dentine almost
joined between cusps.
For seven years, Goddard
carried out exhaustive field
work, recording each minute
feature of the rhino's
appearance and behavior.
Sixteen years after Goddard's
own death at the age of 35,
the number of rhino
in his research area
had plummeted from 108 to
about 20.
Many were the victims of
poachers.
In the vast expanse of
East Africa's Savannah,
protection of the rhino
has proved impossible.
Bob Oguya, warden of Kenya's
Meru Park since 1983,
has one plane and 30 men
to patrol 350 square miles.
The problem we are facing is
that these fellows with
their automatics,
and our people with singly
action 303s it is watch them
and in most cases we lost them,
because with their type of
firearm and with our types of
firearms they end up escaping
our dragnet.
The rangers are at
serious personal risk from
the armed poachers.
Their camel patrols stay out
for weeks at a time,
in touch only by radio with
park headquarters.
Despite the men's vulnerability
and outdated equipment,
they are dedicated and loyal-even
in the face of tragedy.
In December we lost our
sergeant to the
poacher's bullets.
We saw him die.
Without adequate weapons
we were helpless.
Too many of our men have fallen
because we could not
defend ourselves.
If we had automatics instead
of 303s we wouldn't be losing
our people.
With the rhino population at
such critical levels
throughout Africa,
every animal is important.
In Kenya's Masia Mara Reserve,
rangers mounted round the clock
protection for this mother
and calf,
shooting several lions who
came too close.
Worried, the rangers moved the
family to safer ground.
The calf was better protected,
but his mother kept trying to
get back to her old territory,
leaving her baby open to
attack.
The lions seized their chance.
After the incident,
the rangers turned
to Daphne Sheldrick,
who raises wounded and
orphaned animals
On one of the occasions that
she was away the lions got in
and they caught him and
actually made a real mess
of him.
Fortunately, they were young
lions and they weren't
very experienced.
But they certainly chewed
him up very,
very badly and he was dumped
on my doorstep more
dead than alive.
I must say he's fantastically
plucky little rhino.
In fact, his mother's a
very placid, dozy old cow
so I expect this had made him
have to be slightly more alert
The first thing we had to do,
of course was get a friend,
because he'd been through
tremendous trauma,
so we got the sheep.
They've been good friends ever
since and wherever Sam goes,
so the sheep follows and
they play together and
wander around together
and he'll just grow up here
until he's weaned off milk,
and then we'll have to send
him somewhere to be a
wild rhino.
Little Sam was lucky.
These rangers saved his life.
Other rhinos have been
less fortunate,
poached by the very men paid
to protect them.
The shadow of corruption has
fallen across much of Africa,
and Kenya has had her share
of officials
who have cashed in on
illegal rhino horn trade.
It became so bad during the
late 1970s
that a major international
scandal, Centering on the
president's wife, erupted and
as a result of that,
The Kenyan government
was so severely embarrassed
that it closed trade
in all wildlife products,
and that did have
a very needed effect
on the revival of certain species.
But the two species which
showed no revival whatsoever
were the main trophy species,
elephants and rhino,
and by the early 1980s,
it became clear once again
that major elements within the
Wildlife Department
ex-Game Department people,
that is Perez Olindo,
who was the former director
of the National Park Service,
and this has created a
tremendous enthusiasm
throughout Kenya, and we feel
that this is just in
time to revive
what is our most important
effort, and that is a major
plan to save the
rhinos in Kenya.
The problem of human beings
is everywhere.
We have found people who are
colluding with
criminal elements.
They have been prosecuted,
they have been imprisoned.
And I'm afraid that I cannot,
and I will not,
compromise with or collude
with people who are out to do
things that will
harm conservation and wildlife
in this country.
We cannot compromise with sin,
I'm afraid.
The sin is not always hard
to understand.
Within the poverty stricken
rural communities of Africa,
there is a powerful incentive
to poach
A family may be lucky to earn
$20 a month.
Each member of a
rhino poaching
gang may earn $100 or $200 per
raid a year's income.
Although the big money is made
by the middlemen, dealers,
and corrupt officials,
the pay is bountiful
by local standards.
One Kenyan who has fought
against poaching in a
very personal way
is Michael Werikhe.
Known throughout East Africa
as "the rhino man",
he has walked more than 1400
miles and raised over $60,000
on his crusade to
inform Africans of the threat to
the black rhino.
People are very hospitable,
very concerned about my welfare
not only my welfare alone,
but even that of my snake,
which is a very,
very strange thing.
Africans are very scared of snakes,
and to have people showing
so much concern
about an animal they fear so
much is a very touching thing.
Local people are just as
concerned about the wildlife
and about the environment
just like any other people.
And I think it is very important that
wildlife awareness should be
taken to the people,
for it's they who have the final say
and they are ready
to cooperate,
provided that they are given
the right information,
the right encouragement.
Even with the work of
dedicated men like Werikhe,
Kenya's war to save the wild
rhino has essentially been lost
Now, its best hope for
salvation may be the
fenced sanctuary.
Although critics view them
as glorified zoos,
they are far easier to manage
than the huge reserves.
In some cases, it is private
citizens who have taken up
the cause.
Solio Ranch, in the foothills
of Mount Kenya,
is owned by Courtland and
Claude Parfet
In 1970, using their own funds
they encircled 15,000 acres
with a high cost,
specially designed fence,
creating a haven for Africa's
embattled wildlife.
Over a ten year period,
they introduced 23 black rhino
and 16 whites.
Protected, the animals thrived
In less than 20 years,
the number of black rhino
had quadrupled.
Now Solio had a most unusual
problem overpopulation.
The Parfets gave 15 of
the black rhino
the Kenyan government's first
enclosed sanctuary,
at Nakuru National Park.
Transporting the animals to
their new new home is a
huge undertaking.
The selected rhino are located
from the air.
Okay, dart is in.
Keep it in sight.
It's running south.
A vet walks to within 40 feet
of the unsuspecting animal
before using his
tranquilizer gun.
A new, fast acting drug brings
the rhinoceros down in
minutes, but great care must be
taken to prevent it from
injuring itself.
A second injection of
antibiotics prevents
infections
in the dart gun wound.
Though unceremonious,
this rhino's
awakening is the next step
in his relocation.
The animals are kept in
holding pens
for about two weeks to
overcome the stress of capture.
Soon, though, this young bull
will be in stalled among the
tourists and flamingos of
Nakuru.
It has been a long and
difficult journey for him,
but it is here that he can do
the most to help save
his species.
Although the rhino may be well
protected in
fenced sanctuaries,
the situation creates
another problem-inbreeding.
Wildlife biologist Rob Brett
lives and works in Kenya
on a remote private reserve.
He is closely observing the animals
in an effort to find a solution.
Although rhino have been known
about, wondered at, admired,
hated for such a long period,
We know virtually nothing
about their breeding.
Such basic things as what
turns a rhino on,
what makes them breed at
optimum rates
It's crucial that we find out
as much about this sort of
behavior of rhino
in order to conserve them
under the new conditions
that exist.
Their favorite habitat is bush,
they are generally nocturnal,
they spend most of
the day asleep.
And, to observe the
nitty gritty of rhino
sexual behavior takes first
of all a lot of patience,
and a great deal of interest.
It's really ploying
the minimum of equipment
a mixture between very
low tech. If you like, work,
and very high tech.
I am out at dawn every morning
looking for individual rhino
from which to take data.
So well does Brett know this
subjects that he can identify
every rhino
on the reserve from the lines
and wrinkles of its footprint
He takes urine samples left
from each animal
to determine their hormonal
levels, identifying the
pregnant females and
dominant males.
While the black rhino is
extremely secretive about
its mating habits,
the white rhino, like these
on Solio Ranch,
are less inhibited.
This dominant male has
asserted his influence...
And now begins his courtship,
which may last for many days.
He approaches the female and
rests his head on her rump.
His interest may not be
initially returned.
But his persistence eventually
pays off and mating occurs,
sometimes lasting over an hour
Although rhinos are not
monogamous, the female usually
mates with the dominant male
in the area.
Afterwards, the pair
go their separate ways.
If impregnated, the female
will not give birth
for approximately
only one calf at a time.
A newborn rhino,
which weighs up to 120 pounds,
will stay close to its mother
until she has a new calf
for some two to four years.
The rhinoceros, slow to
reproduce and quick to die,
faces an uphill struggle.
In the wild, there are so few
left that some never find a
suitable mate.
In Kenya and elsewhere,
the fight becomes increasingly
grim and ever more complex.
It can be argued that the
numbers of rhino are very low,
but I think it would be
negligence on behalf of
the world
to just turn their backs
on this country now and say,
"All is lost.
There are only 400 rhino left,
they're not worth saving."
We have had long years of
experience with poaching,
which is what Zimbabwe's
having now armed poachers.
Zimbabwe's getting it
for the first time.
I wonder whether they're
actually gong to be able to
save their rhino
by just having armed patrols
and shootouts.
I know in Kenya that they're
fighting armed gangs there,
and there are
contacts taking place.
But we have, right from the
onset, taken on this task
as a war and not a
conservation exercise
purely and simply.
The situation bears a
more than passing resemblance
to full fledged
guerrilla combat...
It is a deadly serious mission
Glenn Tatham commands
Operation Stronghold
from a camp on the
Zambezi River in Zimbabwe,
where he protects the last
large wild rhino population
left in the world.
The project involved moving
one third of the
valley's population,
to safer ground.
The fight to protect the
rest is a desperate one.
Rangers live year round in
camp with their families.
who realize that some of the
men may die in armed conflict.
What we're doing here is
to fight the poachers.
Every day that a group of
poachers are in here,
they are potentially able to
kill two or three or
maybe even four rhino.
One group killed six rhino
one morning here,
here in the Zambezi Valley.
To our north is Zambia,
and these poachers are
crossing from there to here.
The river is the
international boundary
but there is no
barrier as such.
There's two border posts
on that section of the river.
We cannot cover 150 miles of
river frontage every day of
the year, It's an impossibility.
You'd need more than a
division of men to do that.
Even then because of the bush
warfare we'd be fighting,
it's an impossibility.
As in Kenya, the odds are staggering,
and the
danger is real.
Operation Stronghold has just Many
of the rangers are
veterans from opposite sides
of Zimbabwe's war of independence,
now fighting together
against a common enemy.
Facing heavily armed
Zambian-based poachers,
the rangers shoot to kill
with the government's consent.
Since 1985, more than 30
poachers have been shot dead,
and at least 20 taken prisoner
In the same period,
some 330 rhino have died.
Until the network of dealers
and middlemen is broken,
Zimbabwe's rangers know they
can do little more than stem
the tide.
Privately, many wonder how long
it can go on.
We've got people here who've
been in the bush for two years,
they go out for 20 days in
a month, they occasionally have
success, But it's very very...
demanding on them physically,
It's demanding on
their families, its demanding
of their well-being.
They are buoyed up
with enthusiasm every time
you have a successful contact,
and perhaps this is a
good enough reason to
have a contact,
is to boost enthusiasm,
If no other reason.
You have captured,
you have recovered
one and what direction is
the other poacher running to?
No problem, as soon as the
chopper arrives we will get
into your...
I guess the big thing is now,
is to get all the others,
if he's gonna be on the ground
for too long I'll have to go
fly over and pick him up...
One down, one running.
Okay, can't we get them in
and start leap-frogging them?
The support units are on their
way now and...
And the one, as I said,
had been shot in the groin,
was in fact bleeding.
I don't know how, in fact,
he got as far as he had.
He scrabbled about 15 paces
on his stomach and died there.
It all happened so
very quickly.
One tends just to pick up
little images
of what was happening rather
than as an overall thing.
You get images of rounds from
the people behind you,
the expended cartridge cases
landing on your head.
The gang had killed four rhino
in as many days.
Each poacher had risked his
life for a few hundred dollars.
The rangers know that Zimbabwe
is the last stand for
the wild black rhino.
Still, the dilemma they face
is a terrible one.
One often wonders about the
human life for a rhino life,
And at this stage it's a
human life for about 20 rhino lives.
The morality is
perhaps secondary to the fact
that there doesn't seem
to be any other way in which
we can in fact stop
these blokes from getting away
and getting back.
A group of poachers would come
into the country,
they'll start killing rhinos.
We've got to react to that,
and one must never forget
the central objective of
this whole exercise,
this whole operation,
is save the rhino
We are not manhunters,
we're not mercenaries.
We are here as
conservationists.
But desperate situations
require desperate measures.
No, there's no joy in
killing people, but it's a job,
and quite obviously, we're just
pawns on either side
for men who are
just exploiting people
to make themselves rich.
Forty five million years of
nature, unraveled by man
in an evolutionary microsecond
Still, the rhinoceros
can still be saved.
If a major international
effort were mounted to
stop the poachers, the rhino
would almost certainly bounce
back.
But until the incentive
to kill is removed
the profit for the poachers,
middlemen and dealers the
battle will go on.
If the fight is lost,
the rhino will be doomed
to exist only as a drawing in
a child's picture book
of things that once were
and are no more.