Last rhinos in Mozambique killed by poachers (not RINO)

The 15 threatened animals were shot dead for their horns last month in the Mozambican part of Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which also covers South Africa and Zimbabwe.

They were thought to be the last of an estimated 300 that roamed through the special conservation area when it was established as "the world's greatest animal kingdom" in a treaty signed by the three countries' then presidents in 2002.

The latest deaths, and Mozambique's failure to tackle poaching, has prompted threats by South Africa to re-erect fences between their reserves.

Wildlife authorities believe the poachers were able to track the rhinoceroses with the help of game rangers working in the Limpopo National Park, as the Mozambican side of the reserve is known.

A total of 30 rangers are due in court in the coming weeks, charged with collusion in the creatures' deaths, according to the park's administrators.

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Conservationists say the poorly-paid rangers were vulnerable to corruption by organised poaching gangs, who target rhinoceroses for their horns which are prized in Asia for their reputed aphrodisiac and cancer-curing properties.

The trade in rhino horn has seen the numbers of rhino killed spiral in recent years. Over the border in Kruger, the South African part of the transfrontier park, 180 have been killed so far this year, out of a national total of 249. Last year, 668 rhino were poached in South Africa, a 50 per cent increase over the previous year.

Kelvin Alie, from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said the fact that the rangers may have been turned while working on such an important ....

Capitalist countries don’t have that many exotic big animals in the wild, do they?

In Africa, none of their famous game species is "exotic" since they are indigenous. To be exotic they have to come from somewhere else. :-)

South Florida's full of exotics. Some would call the wild horse an exotic since they were introduced by the Spanish. But technically, horss originated in North America and spread elsewhere, then died out here, as did the mastodon, sabertooth and wooly mammoth. At one point there were even rhinocerous, giant bison, and four-pronged antelope roaming the American plains.

As for native big animals, there are quite a few:

Canada : moose, wapiti/elk, musk ox, assorted seals, mule deer, white tail deer, wood bison, bison, caribou, mountain goat, dall sheep, grizzly bear, polar bear, black bear, cougar, lynx, gray wolf, coyote, assorted cetaceans such as narwhal, orca...

USA : moose, wapiti/elk, musk ox, assorted seals, sea lions, mule deer, white tail deer, key deer [OK, so they aren't very big], Columbian blacktail deer, wild horse, wild ass, bison, pronghorn antelope, caribou, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, dall sheep, grizzly bear, polar bear, black bear, kodiak bear, cougar, bobcat, gray wolf, red wolf, coyote, American alligator, American crocodile, Florida manatee, wild boar, assorted introduced exotics, cetaceans such as orca, pilot whale, Atlantic dolphin ...

Europe : red deer, roe deer, wood bison, elk [moose], lynx, bear, wild boar, wolf, ...?

And India is loaded with critters and people.

Tragedy of the commons. If no one owns it it won't get taken care of, and no one will care if it successfully reproduces. If a species is owned, then there is an incentive to protect and breed it so long as its offspring are also your property to do with as you please. There's an incentive to hire good staff to protect and keep the stock. That's why horses, chickens, cows, pigs, dogs, cats, turkeys, geese, water buffalo, and so on are abundant. And game farms work similarly well - note the native prairie chicken is rare while the exotic pheasant is not... you can own and raise pheasant legally.

Maybe they should sell rhino credits instead of trying to push those bogus carbon credits.

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