Last Of The White Rhinos
GABORONE (Botswana):
Botswana is fighting to save its last white rhinos, but a shortage of funds is hampering the rescue plan.
And with the numbers of rhinos alive in the wilds of this southern Africa state possibly down to single figures, there is no let-up by poachers armed with assault rifles.
"If there were only one rhino alive in Botswana, the poachers would still come," Nigel Hunter, Botswana’s Director of Wildlife and National Parks, said.
"There is a rhino poaching network in operation. We are doing what we can to combat it," he said, adding that increasing security cooperation between neighbouring Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana’s fledgling anti-poaching units could help.
But the only sure way to save the last white rhinos was to move them from threatened border areas. Soldiers and wildlife officials trying to protect the animals could not be everywhere, he said.
Hunter said the operation would cost as little as US$100,000 (RM257,000) and while government was keen to help, it had other priorities.
"We are looking ways of funding a new operation and are exploring all avenues."
Foreign funding would be welcomed but too often "red tape" meant money was not available when it was needed.
"The money may come but it may take a year to reach us the poachers don’t wait," said Hunter.
"The government is prepared to make its own commitment but every government department is subject to budgetary constraints and each competes for funds," he said.
Constraints
"We need the money before the start of the rainy season as we would like to get a new project underway towards the end of August."
Hunter estimates there are up to 20 white rhino alive in the wilds of Chobe, a vast national park, but other wildlife experts are sceptical.
"If there are 10 white rhinos left in Botswana, we are lucky," said Jonathan Gib Wildlife Trust.
Four rhinos were saved during an operation aided by South Africa’s Natal Parks Board in the Chobe national park in February. But one of them, a young bull, died from old bullet wounds soon after being captured.
The three surviving captured rhino are now m the Khama Rhino Sanctuary in Serowe in northeast Botswana, well away from poachers’
Rhinos were extinct in Botswana between 1890 and 1967 and were reintroduced to Chobe by the Natal Parks Board which put nearly 100 animals into the area in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Environmentalists say that without poachers to contend with, Botswana should have a rhino population of at least 250. Hunter said 12 rhinos had been shot by poachers, mainly from Zambia, since the beginning of 1992.
Poachers hunt rhinos for their horns which are hacked off and sent to the Far East for use in medicines and the Gulf as ornamental dagger handles — Reuter
Source : The Malay Mail, May 28, 1993
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