It is a report that purports to be from a newspaper called the Bangkok Star, it tells of a grieving widow whose husband died after imbibing rhino horn in one form or another, it cites an anonymous game rancher somewhere in South Africa who has injected his rhinos' horns with poison.  One of his rhinos was poached & de-horned in the last week of July & by mid-August a Thai widow was in tears.

The report spread like wildfire across the internet and was commented upon by many folks, comments sections filled up with jubilant (& often racist) thoughts from people who consider those that drive the market somehow less than human, something I have difficulty stomaching - somehow I'd rather see those that profit from the market in trouble than those that, often unknowing of the damage, consume.  

National Geographic blogger & chief editor David Braun, it seems, picked up that it was probably a hoax and wrote against the idea of poisoning the rhino horns and for the idea of education in the consumer countries.  I won't go into his arguments but I would suggest you read the blog linked above, as you'd expect from such an esteemed height it is well written & well informed.

He calls rhino horn the 'perfect scam': as it has no benefits at all, there's actually no need for the purveyor to add the ingredient to the product sold.  Though I would argue that the amount of money allegedly available for a rhino horn means that certain people believe the traditional stories, aren't willing to be scammed & are prepared to pay to ensure that they're not.

Other bloggers pointed out that while Traditional Chinese Medicine (though it must be pointed out that the regulating bodies of T.C.M. in China & abroad have agreed to take rhino horn, tiger bone etc. off the menu) is the main driving force behind the trade there are other uses, dagger handles etc., for poached rhino horns that don't involve taking the thing internally & therefore this isn't a catch-all cure - though I have to suspect that taking the T.C.M. component out would dramatically decrease the market.

There are a few things I'd like to add to Mr Braun's analysis from a slightly closer perspective, for the story, after awhile, began to worry me, what started as light reading started to take on a potentially dangerous aspect.

Let me start by saying it is almost certainly a hoax.

There is no such paper as the Bangkok Star (at least not that myself or my journalist friends in Bangkok can find) and the chances of an English language Thai newspaper going as far as to find a quote from an anonymous game rancher (while not quoting the rancher who has publicly proposed such a solution - oddly enough in the same week the rhino was reportedly poached) is fairly slim, furthermore, while it seems that the guys who smuggle such things have good routes for doing so, to go from kill to powder half way across the globe in less than two weeks seems slightly far fetched to me.  Perhaps I shouldn't joke, but if they're that efficient they're in the wrong business.

OK, I hear you say, so we admit it's a hoax, a morally complex one at that but why waste time writing about it?  What've you got to add that other, more learned & qualified, bloggers haven't, you, yourself being a morally complex person?

Surely, if it helps to halt the market, if it stops the rhinos being killed on the South African veldt it has to be a good thing? - even better if it's a hoax as no-one dies.  You can't blame the rhino breeders for protecting their investment & this seems to be the perfect way, who wants to source potentially tainted goods?

Well, no, I can't blame them.

However, from an Asian perspective I think there is something everyone seems to have missed and that is that there are still totally wild asian rhino species running around in their native habitat.

Mainly rhinoceros unicornus, the Greater One-horned Rhinoceros, in the jungles of Nepal & India but also hopefully of the few remaining other species hidden in the mountains around here in South-East Asia (Vietnam reported the loss of potentially their last rhino just recently); rhinos the horns of whom it would be impractical or impossible to poison - for even the most populous unicornus are living wild in thick grassland & jungle, I know from painful experience that even counting them is an issue, for the other species, well, we don't even really know they're still there and, given what I'm about to say, let's keep it that way.

Without arguing the conservation pros & cons of wild rhinos in their natural habitat versus of captive bred animals on game ranches (because it is a multi-faceted argument & one I'm not sure of, besides, I'm Asia & Chitwan biased) I do see that the ranchers have a right to protect their investment, I also think, though, that in taking a local view of a global problem they risk causing irreparable damage to several global species (is it feasible to poison the horns of truly wild African rhinos? - I simply don't know, if not they'll be putting those fully wild African rhinos at risk too) and conservation programmes by driving up the prices for certifiably wild caught or Asian rhino horn.

Why buy possibly tainted horn for this price when someone can guarantee you pure, natural, wild horn for this premium?  

The people, as deduced above, who don't want to be scammed exist & are prepared to pay huge sums for the genuine article.

I'm sure it is conservation & compassion that the hoaxers have at heart rather than their own financial well being, but I have to admit that I am glad that their first attempt was such an obviously spottable hoax and would ask them to think again before doing their homework and trying another, perhaps more successful, one - there are other rhinos out here equally worth protecting.

______________________________

THAILAND - Bangkok Star - 18th August

A woman mourns over the body of her deceased husband after he had purchased
apparently purposely contaminated Rhino horn on the open market in Bangkok.
The source of the contamination is still to be verified but it is thought to
be from a private game farm somewhere in southern Africa.
Officials in Thailand are frantic to identify the source, as the powdered
horn is sold in miniscule amounts and they have no idea how much has already
been distributed thoughout Bangkok. Local hospitals are on standby for an
unprecendented influx of new cases.

Officials are unable get information as the rhino horn dealers in Bangkok
are being unco-operative. They neither want to be fingered as being the
provider of the poisoned horn, not do they want to reveal their illegal
international sources. It is believed that private game farm owners in
southern Africa are colluding between themselves to distribute an effective
poison that is harmless to the animals but harmful, or even fatal as in this
case, to those that ingest the contaminated horn.

A game farm owner from the North West Province who obviously wishes to
remain anonymous, has admitted to using the poison on 4 of his animals.
Three of them have shown no side-effects whatsoever 2 months after the
poison was injected into the horns. However the 4th rhino was slaughtered
and de-horned on a remote part of his farm in the last week of July. When
asked to comment on the death in Thailand from suspect poisoned rhino horn,
he refused to be drawn into the morals of the farmers joint action. He said
that there would be many more cases in the near future as he was personally
aware of at least another 5 slaughters of contaminated rhinos in the North
West Province alone.

Authorities in South Africa are unable to comment on the "poison" collusion
among the game farm owners nor are they able to verify the source of the
contaminated horn.

_______________________

P.S. While there is certainly some illegal TCM usage in Thailand & it is undoubtably known as a transit hub (though less & less so thanks to the customs boys at the airport) it also bothers me that Bangkok is seen as the consumer market for this piece.  Maybe it's patriotism but I don't think we are the main consumer market.