üThere used to be more than one million rhinos roaming the African savannah. Today, 150 years later, there are only about 25,000 animals left in the wild. First, European hunting, and then unscrupulous poaching over the past few decades, severely damaged the population. Through vigorous protection efforts, the population has initially stabilized. The numbers have even risen again. But for some time, poaching has again increased significantly. Environmentalists once again see this species in danger.
There are two types of rhinoceros on the African continent, the white rhino (Lavlobes) And black rhino (Diceros bicorStart). The former is listed as potentially endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with approximately 20,000 animals, and the latter has only 5,000 specimens as critically endangered. Most animals now live in South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Kenya, and most live in wildlife sanctuaries and sanctuaries. Rhinos play an important role in the African ecosystem: as herbivores, they devour large amounts of vegetation, thus maintaining the balance of the grasslands. Rhino poaching increased dramatically, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. In the Asian market, horns are considered a valuable medicine with a wide range of uses-from hangovers to fever to cancer. In particular, Vietnam has a great influence on today’s rhino horn trade: there, the possession of rhino horn is only a symbol of wealth and status.
Although the coronavirus pandemic severely curbed poaching in 2020, this decline is unlikely to be permanent. In Kruger National Park alone, the population is said to have fallen by 70% in the past ten years. Poachers are well-equipped and use the most advanced technologies such as helicopters, night vision equipment and veterinary drugs. This makes it difficult for governments and non-governmental organizations subject to their respective budgets to put in at least as much effort and technology to control poachers.
The horn is marked with a radioisotope
A research team in South Africa has now started a pilot project aimed at reducing poaching in southern Africa and protecting rhinos in a whole new way. In cooperation with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization, University of Colorado, Russia’s National Agency for Nuclear Science (Rosatom), South African Institute of Nuclear Science, University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, launched the “Rhisotope Project”. The radioisotope will be injected into the animal’s horn, which makes it easy to detect the horn on the transportation route, and the isotope should not have any effect on the rhino’s health or behavior. Isotopes are types of atoms with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons and therefore different atomic numbers. Some of them are radioactive. Idea: If this method is used on a large scale, the probability of at least one processed horn in the illegally delivered horn is very high.
