Oh Look, Humans Have Set Another Rhino Poaching Record

Considering that we humans have proven again and again that we're highly skilled at decimating wild populations of animals, you'd figure we'd chill out a bit, assured in our place at the top of the food chain. But no. Because a whole lot of people remain convinced that keratin, the stuff your fingernails are made of, has magical medicinal qualities, last year's record rhino poaching total of 668 dead individuals has already been surpassed.

In 2007, a total of 13 were killed. This year, there have already been at least 688.

What else is there to say? The rhino horn crisis has become so lucrative, so entrenched, and so heavily controlled by criminal and militant interests that even the South African population, long thought as rhinos' last stronghold, is under threat. Not long ago the country was estimated to be home to 20,000 white rhinos. That number stands at 18,000 in just a few years. And with the pace increasing, it will likely depress even further.

These trends are nothing new. The demand for horn has decimated rhinos in the past. From 1960 to 1995, the population of black rhinos decreased nearly 98 percent, bottoming out at 2,410 individuals. Now listed as critically endangered, they've rebounded to somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 individuals, largely in South Africa. But now poaching pressure has pushed them down again.

All the white rhinos left are the southern subspecies, as the northern subspecies is presumed extinct after sustained poaching in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's embattled Garamba National Park. That poaching is being led by militant groups looking to cash in on skyrocketing Asian demand that's pushed horn prices well into six figures. That poaching of rhinos and elephants is funding militants, including the Lord's Resistance Army and al-Shabab, along with funding major criminal networks in Asia, has made poaching a legitimate national security issue.

The White House has admitted as much, pledging more support to fight wildlife trafficking. Yet rhinos—and elephants and tigers—continue to be killed for little more than to please the elite in east Asia, especially those in China and Vietnam. Diplomatic actions have so far done little. International transport and sale of rhino horn is banned, as is ivory. But despite huge border busts, the products keep flowing.

And even the threat of international sanctions under CITES, the framework under which wildlife products are regulated, aimed at the eight main players in the ivory business has thus far been largely toothless. Similar threats aimed at Vietnam and Mozambique, respectively the country with the largest rhino horn demand and a major shipping source for horn, has not produced meaningful responses.

What does the future hold? The US diving into the trafficking game may help embattled wildlife rangers tasked with the impossible job of stopping sophisticated poachers, especially if it focuses on quelling demand in Vietnam. (That demand remains high is quizzical, as obscenely expensive rhino horn has absolutely zero medicinal or psychotropic properties.) South Africa and Vietnam's pledge to close the rhino hunting loophole may also help. Legalizing horn most likely won't.

In other words, it's not like there's a single step that can be taken to slow the death of rhinos. We may be able to learn from the past, as southern white rhinos rebounded in the 20th century from an incredible low in the end of the 1800s. But that time, they bottomed out at somewhere between 20 and 50 individuals before the popular tide turned against rhino hunting and towards conservation. This time around, unless major awareness efforts are made, high demand and growing poaching rates are likely to push rhinos to the brink again.

@derektmead