Far more pervasive, however, is their use in the traditional medicine systems of many Asian countries, from Malaysia and South Korea to India and China, to cure a variety of ailments. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the horn, which is shaved or ground into a powder and dissolved in boiling water, is used to treat fever, rheumatism, gout, and other disorders.
In Yemen, the rhino horn is used for the handles of curved daggers called jambiya. Historical mentions of other uses for the horns date back thousands of years. In Greek mythology, they were said to possess the ability to purify water. The most sparing evidence has been brought to bear claiming that rhino horn may somehow help lower fever, at least in rodents. Certainly, cheaper, more readily available medicines such as acetaminophen or aspirin are far more effective, Lieberman says.
Tiger bone crushed and made into a paste has been said to be usable to treat a variety of ailments, including rheumatism and back pain. All rights reserved. Update: In an interview with state media published Nov. Wildlife Watch is an investigative reporting project between National Geographic Society and National Geographic Partners focusing on wildlife crime and exploitation. Send tips, feedback, and story ideas to ngwildlife natgeo.
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Epic floods leave South Sudanese to face disease and starvation. Travel 5 pandemic tech innovations that will change travel forever These digital innovations will make your next trip safer and more efficient. No one disputes that medicinal and recreational use of rhino horn, mostly in Vietnam, is directly responsible for high levels of poaching in southern African countries, which continues to threaten the species with extinction.
But while it is true that rhino products are mentioned in a variety of traditional Vietnamese medicine texts, the scale of the Vietnamese market has risen hugely over the past 15 years: this demand is a modern phenomenon. Influenced in part by rumours of a prominent senior government official being cured, sick and dying cancer sufferers and their families are directly targeted by unscrupulous vendors. In addition over the past decade and a half rhino horn has become, a party drug, a health supplement, and a hangover cure — a luxury product conspicuously consumed by newly wealthy elites.
It is often argued that as with other high-demand products such as narcotics regulation rather than prohibition is the best solution, and one that will best safeguard animal and human welfare, and habitat. This argument rests on an assumption that the Vietnamese market is far more culturally established than it in fact is. The contemporary medicinal consumption of rhino horn is presented as a traditional practice that people are culturally committed, indeed almost obliged, to perpetuate.
However, the world is full of beliefs and practices which are irrational, superstitious, or without scientific validity, but that does not mean that they are necessarily traditional: they can be all these things and still be modern or even post-modern, perhaps high-tech, and without historical precedent.
Rhino poaching is being driven by the demand for rhino horn in Asian countries, particularly China and Viet Nam. Rhino horn is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, but increasingly common is its use as a status symbol to display success and wealth. Poaching is now a threat in all rhino range states, however, as South Africa is home to the majority of rhinos in the world, it is being heavily targeted.
More than ever, field programmes are having to invest heavily in anti-poaching activities. Poachers are now being supplied by international criminal gangs with sophisticated equipment to track and kill rhinos.
Frequently a tranquiliser gun is used to bring the rhino down, before its horn is hacked off, leaving the rhino to wake up and bleed to death very painfully and slowly. Poachers are often armed with guns themselves, making them very dangerous for the anti-poaching teams who put their lives on the line to protect rhinos.
The scarcity of rhinos today and the corresponding intermittent availability of rhino horn only drives the price of horn higher and higher, intensifying pressure on declining rhino populations. Find out the latest poaching statistics. They are made of keratin — in rhinoceros horn, it is chemically complex and contains large quantities of sulphur-containing amino acids, particularly cysteine, as well as tyrosine, histidine, lysine, and arginine, and the salts calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate.
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