The last sentence about rhino horn being an aphrodisiac is only found in Western media reports and is not mentioned in traditional Chinese medical texts. Likewise, there is no mention of it being used to cure cancer as has been claimed recently by a modern Vietnamese politician.

~ Alan



Rhino head stolen to order by thieves

Police are hunting a gang of thieves who broke into a museum and stole a valuable stuffed rhinoceros head.

Detectives believe the head, which was at least 90-years-old, may have been stolen to order so that the horn could be used in the lucrative Chinese medicine trade.

There have been a spate of similar thefts recently and museums with such artefacts in their collections are being warned to review their security arrangements.

The rhino head had been on display at the Haslemere Educational Museum, in Haslemere, Surrey.

Burglars broke in at around 2am on Friday morning and made off with the head, but no other items were taken in the raid.

The rhino horn, once ground down, can fetch as much as £60,000 per kilo in China where followers of traditional medicine believe it can help cure a range of illnesses.

Detective Constable Dave Pellatt of Surrey Police said the investigation was looking at the possibility that the rhino head had been stolen to order.

It had been on display in the mammal collection at the museum which boasts around 250 specimens, mainly from the British Isles and Africa.

The head was donated to the museum in 1929 by a C.I. Blackburne after he obtained it in 1913 during a trip to British East Africa.

In February a rhino head worth more than £50,000 was stolen from an auction house in Essex.

Thieves forced open doors to Sworder’s Auctioneers in Stansted Mountfitchet and fled with the mounted head.

In 2010 the UK Border Agency discovered two horns from a rare white rhino which were bound for China.

DNA tests later revealed that the horns had come from an animal called Simba which had died at Colchester Zoo in April 2009.

Police discovered that a member of staff at an abattoir had sold the head for £400 rather than incinerate as required by international law.

Trading Rhino horns was banned in 1976 by signatories of the Convention of the International Trade in Endangered Species.

But the demand for the items in China has remained undiminished and the increasing rarity of the animals in the wild and successes in clamping down on poachers has led to an increased trade in the heads of stuffed animals.

The horn of the rhino was traditionally used in Chinese medicine as a cure for a range of ailments including gout and rheumatism.

But it is also said to be valued as an aphrodisiac.