people does it take to move a rhinoceros? Your correspondent suspects that the answer is “as many as you can find”. On a recent morning in the Northern Cape, South Africa’s largest province by area, a veterinarian fired a tranquilliser dart out of a helicopter into a female rhino’s rump. It then took 19 rangers, an electric prod and a lot of corralling to get the pachyderm into a crate. Once inside the animal was trucked to its new owner, another private game reserve.
Reserve-owners make money from tourism and hunting, though the latter offends many moral sensibilities. Yet charging dentists from the Cotswolds or Connecticut to pretend to be Ernest Hemingway keeps many reserves afloat. And since the scores of rhinos hunted every year are old bulls who would otherwise compete for resources, regulated hunts can in fact help increase numbers.
Less than 10% of annual losses from poaching happen on private land. This is because private owners spend at least four times as much on security as national parks do. They cannot pass on all the costs: safari-goers can opt for the beach instead; hunters can shoot antelope. “The economics of rhino ownership is a disaster. It’s a bottomless pit,” says Pelham Jones, the head of the Private Rhino Owners Association, a lobby group.
There are many creative efforts afoot to boost rhino populations. African Parks organises donor-funded translocations to other African countries. Last year the World Bank issued the first “rhino bonds”, which raised money for two South African state-run parks with black rhinos. Another idea is “biodiversity credits”, which would pay those preserving flora and fauna.