Dehorning Rhinos Curbs Poaching, New Study Finds
Researchers in South Africa find that cutting the animals’ horns reduces poaching by almost 80 percent
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Poaching is a major threat to rhinoceroses around the world. In South Africa alone, more than 400 rhinos are killed every year. Poachers are after the animals' horns, which are then sold illegally, mainly to buyers in China and Vietnam.
Conservationists and local officials have come up with different interventions to combat poaching, like using tracking dogs and detection cameras. For the past 30 years, one of those interventions has been dehorning the animals.
Now, a new study shows that the dehorning strategy works. The study was a collaboration between scientists, reserve managers and conservationists tasked by the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation to assess different rhino protection methods in South Africa’s Greater Kruger region, home to a quarter of the continent's rhinos.
The researchers gathered seven years of data across 11 reserves in the area, amounting to 1,985 documented cases of poaching. They found that dehorning reduced poaching by 78 percent in eight of the reserves. Other approaches, the researchers say, didn’t have an effect. The findings were published in the journal Science last week.
Timothy Kuiper, the study’s lead author and a biodiversity scientist at South Africa’s Nelson Mandela University, is aware of the fact that a rhino’s horns are iconic. “It is a big part of what a rhino is, having a horn,” says Kuiper to Gerald Imray at the Associated Press. “So having to remove it is kind of a necessary evil, if I can put it that way. But it’s very effective. There’s no doubt it saved hundreds of rhinos’ lives.”
To remove a rhino’s horns, workers sedate the animal, cover their eyes and ears, and shorten the horns with a chainsaw. The procedure poses little risk to the animal, and the horns eventually grow back. Over the seven years of the study, 2,284 rhinos were dehorned across eight of the reserves.
“Although dehorning is widespread, it is also met with a lot of criticism regarding its true efficacy and cost,” says Vanessa Duthé, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University who was not involved in the study, to Rachel Nuwer at the New York Times. “This study shows that the benefits of dehorning largely outweigh the costs."
And dehorned rhinos are still targeted—111 of the hornless rhinos were poached, since they still have a stump from the horn removal process. Veterinarians leave up to six inches of horn to protect a growth plate that is found at the base of the rhino's horn, Kuiper writes in a piece for the Conversation. Jasper Eikelboom, a wildlife ecologist at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, tells Jake Buehler at Science News that it’s unclear what would happen if all rhinos were dehorned.
“The poachers always had the option to target non-dehorned rhinos, which provides a higher reward for poachers. So, it makes sense that poachers prioritize targeting non-dehorned rhinos over dehorned ones, if both are available in and around the same area,” Eikelboom says. If all rhinos are dehorned, then poaching levels might rise again, he adds. Poachers would just be looking for the stumps.
Kuiper tells the New York Times that dehorning alone won’t solve the poaching crisis. The practice needs to be implemented alongside other strategies. Those include more support and training for rangers and park personnel, and addressing the inequalities that drive individuals towards the trade in the first place. Local communities should also be involved in rhino conservation efforts, he writes in the Conversation.
“Dehorning is not a long-term solution,” Kuiper tells the New York Times. “At the end of the day, it’s a small thing that can be done to hopefully buy time for the broader work that needs to happen.”
