Really cool story.....
http://www.accuweather.com/en/featu...ed_to_australia_insurance_population/57342742
http://www.accuweather.com/en/featu...ed_to_australia_insurance_population/57342742
African Rhinos being moved to Australia for species survival
- Thread starter Dead Money
- Start date
Happy & sad that we have to resort to remove groups of rhinos to possibly save them from extinction. I applaud them for starting a back up plan to save them & possibly resettle them back to Africa but as mentioned this will take generations. I've been involved for awhile with the rescue of baby elephants in Kenya because of poaching. Great article thanks !
That is an interesting story!
"This project is never going to save the rhinos. It's one strand in a very complex web."
very true
Real interesting piece here on some of that complexity....How rising wealth (and the brand new and now suddenly fat, drunk, happy and cancer-ridden middle classes) in SE Asian is inflating a bubble for rhino horns, which greatly increases poaching - and the resulting greater scarcity and preciousness of the horn will increase demand and poaching even more - into a rapid death spiral....
I was involved a tiny bit in a similar attempt to rescue the Kemp's ridley sea turtle by getting them to nest on remote and highly protected Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. Before that, almost all of the successful nesting of these turtles worldwide occurred on just 16 miles of poorly protected beach in Mexico, and the nesting numbers were plummeting toward extinction due to poaching and habitat loss. Or one well-timed and placed hurricane could wipe them out.
So conservationists in the 80s tested out the untried theory of maternal beach imprinting on a massive scale, raising hatchlings from eggs gathered in Mexico and releasing them in Texas. It worked like a charm, and there is a robust nesting colony in Texas now. But turns out the Mexicans got their act together and the nesting population down there has recovered too.
"This project is never going to save the rhinos. It's one strand in a very complex web."
very true
Real interesting piece here on some of that complexity....How rising wealth (and the brand new and now suddenly fat, drunk, happy and cancer-ridden middle classes) in SE Asian is inflating a bubble for rhino horns, which greatly increases poaching - and the resulting greater scarcity and preciousness of the horn will increase demand and poaching even more - into a rapid death spiral....
I was involved a tiny bit in a similar attempt to rescue the Kemp's ridley sea turtle by getting them to nest on remote and highly protected Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. Before that, almost all of the successful nesting of these turtles worldwide occurred on just 16 miles of poorly protected beach in Mexico, and the nesting numbers were plummeting toward extinction due to poaching and habitat loss. Or one well-timed and placed hurricane could wipe them out.
So conservationists in the 80s tested out the untried theory of maternal beach imprinting on a massive scale, raising hatchlings from eggs gathered in Mexico and releasing them in Texas. It worked like a charm, and there is a robust nesting colony in Texas now. But turns out the Mexicans got their act together and the nesting population down there has recovered too.
