Word: rhino
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Operation Stronghold, as the policy is known, was approved by Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in mid-1985, when less violent attempts to arrest poachers proved ineffective. Most of the rhino hunters cross the border from Zambia. Rangers try to stop them without bloodshed, insists Blondie Leathem, 29, who coordinates the Zambezi Valley patrols, but "trying to arrest a man with an AK-47 is like trying to grab a lion with your bare hands. We must often shoot first to protect our lives...
...gunslinging rangers have so far captured 21 poachers and killed 29. But the gangs keep coming, and parks officials admit that they are in a losing battle. Their only hope is to slow down illegal hunting in order to buy time for two other efforts to save the rhinos. One is capturing and moving as many of the animals as possible away from the Zambezi Valley to safer sanctuaries. The other involves an international campaign of diplomacy and media pressure to shut down the trade in rhino horn...
...Rhino horn is not actually horn but densely compacted fibers of keratin, a protein found in hair and fingernails. Importing it is illegal in most countries, but an illicit $3 million-a-year trade flourishes in the Middle East and eastern Asia, where dealers pay $450 per lb. wholesale for the stuff. (One large animal can yield 10 lbs. of horn.) It is a myth that the horn is used as an aphrodisiac. In the Far East it is ground into traditional medicines that supposedly reduce fever and stop nosebleeds. It is also coveted in North Yemen, where...
...close down these markets, Zimbabwe has been working with the World Wildlife Fund and the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species to pressure countries to ban trade in rhino horn or to enforce existing laws. Experts say that most Zimbabwean horn is smuggled through Zambia and on to distributors in Burundi and the United Arab Emirates. These countries have become targets for conservationists. "We need to expose and destroy the Zambian syndicate that deals in rhino horn," says Glenn Tatham, Zimbabwe's chief warden. "We need to hit the whole trade with an H-bomb, so to speak...
Meanwhile, Zimbabwean rangers have been capturing Zambezi Valley rhinos and moving them away from the war zone. Since 1984 the teams have relocated nearly 240 animals to safer game reserves and fenced-in ranches. On one recent morning, Warden Clem Coetsee, head of the capture unit, set out with his men to bag their 75th rhino of the three-month dry-weather capturing season. Armed with a heavy darting rifle loaded with nerve-blocking tranquilizer, he spotted a rhino cow, moved into range and took careful aim. The dart hit the beast's shoulder with a thwack. She snorted...