Four extremely rare Northern White rhinos recently transferred to Kenya from a Czech zoo have been dehorned to protect them from poachers, a conservation group announced.
“With the increase of poaching in Kenya, we are simply not taking any chances,” Elodie Sampere from the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, which is overseeing the animals’ acclimatization told AFP.
Cutting off the horns will spike the hunters’ guns because “without a horn, these rhinos are of no value to poachers,” she said.
The rhinos, two males and two females, are among only eight members of a very rare sub-species of white rhinos known to be alive worldwide and were transferred back to Kenya with the hope they would reproduce.
Kenyan wildlife rangers earlier this month arrested 12 men from an illicit game trade syndicate suspected of killing a 10-year-old white rhino and hacking off its horns.
The east African country, which has the world’s third largest rhino population — around 600 black and 300 white rhinos — suffered its worst year for rhino poaching in 2009, when 12 black and six white rhinos were killed.
The illegal trade is driven by Asian and Middle Eastern demand for ivory used in traditional medicines for fevers, convulsions and as an aphrodisiac.
Sampere said that sawing off the four Northern White rhinos’ horns would also allow them to grow back straight.
“All the rhinos had horns that didn’t grow upright. This is a result of them being in the zoo and not having trees to rub against,” she said.
The conservationist also said that a radio-transmitter the size of a matchbox was screwed into the base of the hacked off horn to enable the tracking of the animals as they are released back into the wild.
(AFP)
一個保育團體宣稱，最近從捷克某動物園被移置肯亞的四隻極稀有北方白犀牛已被去除犀牛角，以免被盜獵者盯上。
奧爾佩亞塔保育區負責監看這群犀牛適應環境的艾洛迪．珊佩爾對法新社說：「隨著肯亞非法捕殺的情況愈來愈嚴重，我們不希望冒任何風險。」
她說，鋸掉犀牛角可以破壞獵人的計畫，因為「沒有犀牛角的犀牛對盜獵者來說，一點價值也沒有」。
這兩公兩母的白犀牛是世界已知僅存的八隻極稀有亞種白犀牛之四，送回肯亞，是希望牠們能在那裡繁衍下去。
肯亞野生動物園管理員本月稍早逮捕了某非法野生動物買賣組織的十二名成員，他們涉嫌捕殺一頭十歲大的白犀牛，並砍下犀牛角。
位於東非的肯亞，境內犀牛數量佔世界第三──約六百頭黑犀牛和三百頭白犀牛，二ＯＯ九年盜獵犀牛的情況最為猖獗，有十二頭黑犀牛和六頭白犀牛被捕殺。
這些非法交易是為了滿足亞洲和中東的市場需求，這些獸角被製成具解熱、治癲癇和壯陽等功效的傳統藥物
珊佩爾說，鋸掉這四隻北方白犀牛的角也是為了要讓牠們重新長出挺直的角。
她說：「這些犀牛之前的角都長得不直，是因為牠們生長在動物園，犀角無法摩擦樹木。」
保育人士也說，他們在鋸掉的犀角根部栓進火柴盒大小的無線電傳輸器，以便追蹤牠們被野放之後的情形。
（法新社╱翻譯：袁星塵）
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