Rhino Revenge

The following story has been going round the blogs and websites. According to Hoax Slayer it is as yet "unsubstantiated" but they don't say it is actually untrue.

Although we do not wish death on anybody, it would be nice to believe that there was a way of bringing to an end the barbaric trade in rhino horn.

Thanks to Karen for the following story:

Now the first poisoned rhino horn funeral !!

A woman mourns over the body of her deceased husband after he had purchased apparently purposely contaminated Rhino horn on the open market in Bangkok. The source of the contamination is still to be verified but it is thought to be from a private game farm somewhere in Southern Africa.

Officials in Thailand are frantic to identify the source, as the powdered horn is sold in miniscule amounts and they have no idea how much has already been distributed throughout Bangkok. Local hospitals are on standby for an unprecedented influx of new cases.

Officials are unable get information as the rhino horn dealers in Bangkok are being unco-operative. They neither want to be fingered as being the provider of the poisoned horn, not do they want to reveal their illegal international sources. It is believed that private game farm owners in southern Africa are colluding between themselves to distribute an effective poison that is harmless to the animals but harmful, or even fatal as in this case, to those that ingest the contaminated horn.

A game farm owner from the North West Province who obviously wishes to remain anonymous, has admitted to using the poison on 4 of his animals. Three of them have shown no side-effects whatsoever 2 months after the poison was injected into the horns. However the 4th rhino was slaughtered and de-horned on a remote part of his farm in the last week of July. When asked to comment on the death in Thailand from suspect poisoned rhino horn, he refused to be drawn into the morals of the farmers joint action. He said that there would be many more cases in the near future as he was personally aware of at least another 5 slaughters of contaminated rhinos in the North West Province alone.

Authorities in South Africa are unable to comment on the "poison" collusion among the game farm owners nor are they able to verify the source of the contaminated horn.