Scientists in South Africa are actually injecting the horns of reside rhinoceroses with non-toxic radioactive isotopes to render the horns unfit for human consumption and to make them simpler to trace when crossing worldwide borders, in line with a press launch. College of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
This system, launched Tuesday by the college’s Radiation and Well being Physics Unit (RHPU), has been working for a number of years as a approach to combat again towards poachers promoting the horns, which are sometimes smuggled overseas and used as a substitute. drug remedy.
The mission, playfully known as the Rhizotope Venture, will inject low doses of radioisotopes into the horns of 20 anesthetized rhinoceroses, whose well being might be monitored over the subsequent six months. If profitable, this system might be expanded to incorporate elephants and pangolins, in addition to different vegetation and animals, in line with the college.
Consuming merchandise constituted of the horns would make them “basically toxic for human consumption,” one of many researchers informed the French publication. AFPhowever the primary objective is definitely to determine smuggling makes an attempt earlier than they go away the nation.
Most main airports and ports, together with these in South Africa, have already got infrastructure in place to detect radioactive supplies in an try to guard them from nuclear weapons. In idea, anybody making an attempt to smuggle in these now radioactive horns would set off an alarm and provoke a really critical police response. However scientists instantly notice that this course of just isn’t dangerous to animals.
“Every set up was rigorously monitored by skilled veterinarians and excessive measures have been taken to stop any hurt to the animals,” Professor James Larkin, who’s main the mission, stated in a press launch. “Via months of analysis and testing, we now have additionally verified that the radioisotopes administered don’t pose any well being or different threat to the animals or those that take care of them.”
The Witwatersrand posted the video on YouTube showcasing the brand new course of the college group has undertaken to fight poaching.
“Each 20 hours in South Africa, a rhinoceros dies due to its horn,” Larkin stated. “These boiled horns are then bought around the globe and utilized in conventional medicines or as standing symbols. This has led to their horns being presently probably the most beneficial counterfeit commodity on the black market, with a worth even larger than gold, platinum, diamonds and cocaine.”
The Worldwide Rhino Basis studies that 499 rhinos have been killed in South Africa in 2023, down 11% from 2022. There are an estimated 16,800 white rhinos and 6,500 black rhinos left worldwide. Solely in South Africa roughly 80% the world’s white rhinos and about 30% of the world’s black rhinos.