South African rhino survives horrific attack by poachers (UPDATED & photo)
Last edited Mon May 25, 2015, 01:23 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: AP
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
JOHANNESBURG (AP) The rhino's rescuers gave her a name: Hope.
Poachers in South Africa had darted the rhino with a tranquilizer and hacked off her horns while she was sedated, leaving the animal with a horrific wound covering much of her face. A couple of days later, staff on a wildlife reserve found the grievously injured rhino alive.
Last week, veterinarians operated on the 4-year-old female, a rare survivor of increasing attacks by poachers who killed more than 1,200 rhinos last year in South Africa, home to most of the world's rhinos. They removed maggots and dead tissue, applied dressing and fastened a fiberglass cast with steel screws. The wound measures 50 by 28 centimeters (19.6 by 11 inches), the biggest of 10 similar cases that the team has treated in the last three years.
"If we can save Hope and she can go back and produce more offspring, then in her lifetime she would have contributed to the survival of the species," said Dr. Gerhard Steenkamp, a veterinarian from the University of Pretoria. He is a member of Saving the Survivors, a South African group that treats rhinos with gunshot wounds, facial gouges and other injuries inflicted by poachers.
FULL story at link.
In this photo taken Friday, May 22, 2015 and supplied by Saving the Survivors, a rhino named Hope, stands in her pen in the Eastern Cape province, treated with a dressing where her horns used to be. Poachers had darted the rhino with a tranquilizer and then hacked off its horns while it was sedated, leaving the animal with a horrific wound covering much of its face. (Suzanne Boswell Rudham/Saving the Survivors via AP)
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/01cf56834c834d69b9c30a3b283b485c/south-african-rhino-survives-horrific-attack-poachers
IHateTheGOP
(1,059 posts)So these animals wake mortally mutilated.... God damn mankind.
sorefeet
(1,241 posts)humans are disgusting critters.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)EL34x4
(2,003 posts)Problem is few anti-poaching authorities to find them all. Sub-saharan Africa is a pretty big place.
The people who need to be dealt with equally as harshly are those who've enabling poaching to be a lucrative activity because they're willing to pay a fortune for a few grams of magical erection powder made from ground rhino horns.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)onehandle
(51,122 posts)swilton
(5,069 posts)when in fact a US hunter just paid 350,000 to kill one in Namibia and CNN publicized it.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/africa/namibia-rhino-hunt/
PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)where it is used on the handles of their ceremonial Daggers.
http://www.yementimes.com/en/1792/photoessay/4017/The-Jambiya-Yemeni-icon-and-status-symbol.htm
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)Orrex
(63,215 posts)Alternative medicine never hurt anyone.
swilton
(5,069 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,545 posts)Hope those charged with her healing will take such good care of her, and carefully try to make sure the rest of her life will be protected from creatures from the pit of hell.
I hope she will see there are beings who may look like the monsters who will not harm her. I hope she will be placed where she can have the fellowship of other innocent critters who will be her non-threatening friends.
She has seen the worst in the world. She deserves to be healed, and find safety. May Hope find a peaceful home.
Number9Dream
(1,562 posts)Thank you, Judi Lynn.
jmowreader
(50,559 posts)You realize that if someone were to put a drug that would kill your sex drive for 24 hours into the same packets rhino horn hard-on powder comes in, shuffle those packets into retail boxes of real rhino horn so the box contained half real rhino horn and half anti-rhino horn, and ship those boxes to the stores for Friday night, the rhino horn business would end by Tuesday - people would be too scared to use it.
And of course, you KNOW this shit would also become very popular among club-going ladies in the US. Creepy guy keeps sending you free drinks and making suggestive glances in your direction? Slip this in his drink and date rape will not be a problem tonight...
FarrenH
(768 posts)is infusing the rhino's horn with a poison (not poisonous to the rhino) along with a bright dye to make it clear to would-be poachers. Given the dwindling population of rhinos I'm surprised it hasn't been done to all SA's rhinos yet. But their numbers are spread across multiple reserves, public and private. Also, some poachers are not deterred even when there is prominent signage everywhere warning that the rhinos' horns are poisoned. If they can sell it to an ignorant middle-man, they will poach it. Hopefully when people using "traditional medicine" in destination countries like Vietnam start getting violently ill awareness will spread to the consumption side of the problem. The Vietnamese government is also working with SA to spread awareness of conservation issues and convince people that these so-called medicines don't actually work, while doing great harm.