I bought one of these silly things for the hood of my car. Don't laugh. I got one for you too for Christmas! It is a recycled plastic rhino horn being sold by the not-for-profit Rhinose Foundation with the proceeds going towards the effort to stop rhino poaching in South Africa and in the world. In my defense, Vince pointed one out to me on a car as we were driving around Joburg early on in our South African adventure saying, "You know we are going to have to get one of those!" I agreed. The hope is that everyone will feel that way, put one on their hood and drive it around the towns and countryside to remind people of the plight of the world rhino population.
I will spare you all the gruesome details. You can get those yourself by looking at any or all of the following websites, rhinoprotect.org, rhinoseday.com, savetherhino.org as well as many other wildlife conservation organizations' websites.The only thing I will say is to repeat the fact that at the present rate of illegal rhino poaching, the rhino will be gone, obliterated, extinct in 17 years! A rhino is slaughtered for its horn every 10 hours, more than two a day and it is increasing!
To put that into perspective, I saw my first rhino in the wild in Kenya in 1979. At the time ours was the only land rover of the five that were part of our safari to see a rhino. We knew we were lucky! But that was almost 34 years ago, twice the life expectancy of the rhino with the current slaughter rate. We would have no hope of seeing one today if those rates were current in 1979 and had prevailed. Two times no hope to be exact!
We are going on our first safari here next month in Kruger and I am hoping to see a rhino as part of the Big Five. Fingers crossed!
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