China is Farming with SA Rhinos

China is farming rhino in two reserves in that country – one is named Africa View – where rhino imported from South Africa are being kept in rows of concrete pens. Africa View is not open to the public.

Between 2006 and 2009, China imported 121 rhino from South Africa, the only country to purchase more than a handful of the animals for zoological or breeding purposes.

Africa View is owned by an arms manufacturer, the Hawk Group of Manchuria in China's northeast. However, the company is also involved in traditional Chinese medicine through a subsidiary called Longhui, which also manages a zoo in Hang Zhou.

Longhui's website records that in order to “provide our pharmaceutical raw materials; the company has built an endangered animals breeding station in Sanya, Hainan province. The company has imported a large number of endangered animals, laying a solid foundation for its long-term development." An online business plan states that Longhui aims to produce various rhino-horn products, including 500 000 "detox pills.” It projects annual sales revenue of R360 million.

The project contravenes national and international legislation, although Chinese officials affirmed to world governments at CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) that they did not intend to permit rhino farming.

Vietnamese officials regard their country mainly as a transit route for Chinese consumers, but Vietnamese capital Hanoi abounds with rhino-horn paraphernalia not openly available in other countries.

The Vietnamese use of rhino horn is confirmed by the fact that more Vietnamese have been caught in South Africa trying to take rhino horn out of the country than have been detained in Vietnam. In 2010 three Vietnamese were arrested with 24 pieces of rhino horn and the Vietnamese government has been implicated in the illicit trade as an economic attaché from the Vietnamese embassy in Pretoria was twice nabbed with rhino horn, but invoked diplomatic immunity.

Wildlife crime is linked to a host of other criminal-syndicate pursuits, but it is almost impossible to snare them without the cooperation of countries such as China and Vietnam and transit countries Thailand and Malaysia.

Vietnamese criminals have also posed as rhino hunters in private SA game ranches merely to access horn. In 2003 Vietnamese hunters legally exported nine trophies. In the first nine months of 2010, the number of Vietnamese trophy-permit applications had reached 107.

By 2008, suspicious South African officials began limiting each hunter to just one rhino kill per year. Rhino poaching increased almost immediately. Vietnamese keep getting arrested trying to smuggle horns out of South Africa. In January a Vietnamese man and woman were detained in Pretoria trying to sneak out four unlicensed horns from animals they shot during a trophy hunt just days earlier.

• Against this backdrop it seems strange that a statement issued last week after a meeting between SA police minister Nathi Mthethwa and his Vietnamese counterpart Gen Le Hong Anh, Minister of Public Security, on a Letter of Intent signed between the two countries makes no mention of rhino poaching.

However, Gen Anh did say: “We believe it is important that both South Africa and Vietnam cooperate in preventing, combating and investigating crime, including, but not limited to organise crime, including organised environmental crime and corruption.”

The chinese farming rino might just save them, and if done humanely I could support it completely.

quote:

where rhino imported from South Africa are being kept in rows of concrete pens

That doesn't sound humane??????


.

Ever seen Other farmed animals? It ain't always humane lookin'...

Cows are farmed, pigs, chickens.......no it isn't always humane.

I believe I said "IF" humane I could get behind it.

Hell, Rhinos are farmed now.

Ya know what, if china can produce Rhinos as efficiently as they produce basically everything else, let them do it! Wouldn't surprise me a bit to see some African countries importing their Rhino from China in a few years to re-populate their own areas.

Might do one of 2 things; curtail poaching, or allow for more poaching via "camouflage" provided by captive bred Rhinos...

Interesting turn in the "Rhino chronicles" though.

JW

They already farm bears in China for their liver bile, poor things are on a tube 24 hours a day in a small cage and the bile is slowly drained from their livers. At least the rino simply gets killed (or not?) and the horn removed.

Hunters in Canada used to be able to sell gallbladders from their legally taken bears. Unfortunately it's impossible to tell the legit ones from the poached ones....same as rino horn. So the practice was stopped.

Then there's the idea that anything grown in the wild has better medicinal qualities. Wild ginsing commands a huge premium over farmed stuff. I've heard that there is still a market for dried wild gallbladders. In Asia they are supposed to be worth about 10K. I'm not sure if that's true or not.

How will this impact the rino? I hope it lessens the pressure on the wild ones but somehow I doubt it.

I knew hunting guides in central Idaho who used to save and sell the gall bladders from the bears killed in their camps. By the looks of some of these guys, I doubt very seriously that there was all that much money in it.

When you could sell the gallbladders legally it was $150 each. Not much compared to the end price.