Articles for Intl Rhino Foundation

How far would you go to stop rhino poaching? Constantly outgunned by poachers' high-tech helicopters, machine guns, night-vision binoculars, bullet-proof vests and insane arsenal in the illegal trade of "medicinal" rhino horns that are worth more than gold, one pissed-off game manager outside of Johannesburg, South Africa wants to do the unthinkable: inject poison into horns as a deadly warning to would-be poachers and the consumers who would buy them.

Harare — THE Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority has tightened its regulations to stop dealers from exporting raw ivory, The Financial Gazette can reveal.

Police seized $1 million worth of rhino horns and ivory and shut down an illegal ivory factory in a sweep across southern Africa, international police agency Interpol said on Tuesday.

A transnational operation co-ordinated by INTERPOL targeting wildlife crime across southern Africa has resulted in the location and closure of an illegal ivory factory, the seizure of nearly 400 kilos of ivory and rhino horn with a market value of more than one million dollars, as well as the arrest of 41 people.

Special police unit, The Hawks, have arrested a 33-year old man for trading in ivory and rhino horns at a shopping mall in Temba, north of Pretoria.

Kenya will campaign for a total ban on ivory trade at an international meeting on wildlife conservation scheduled for March, as its herds of elephants continue to be endangered by poaching.

Three months from a major international conference on endangered species, African countries are divided over whether a fresh round of ivory sales should be allowed.

Kenya is opposing a move by Tanzania to reintroduce the sale of ivory, saying it will increase elephant poaching in the region.