Poachers kill one of last two white rhinos in Zambia

[The Stranger]

Source: Yahoo News

Tue Jun 12, 9:56 AM ET

LUSAKA (AFP) - Poachers have shot the last two white rhinos in Zambia, killing one and wounding the other, in a night operation at the Mosi-Oa-Tunya national park in Livingstone, an official said Tuesday.

The shooting of the two endangered animals in a heavily-guarded zoological park near Victoria Falls in Zambia's tourist resort town of Livingstone took place last week.

"I can confirm that one of the white rhinos was shot dead by suspected poachers. The other one was wounded and is undergoing treatment," said Maureen Mwape, spokesperson of the Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA), which would be investigating the shooting.

The dead female rhino's horn was apparently removed.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070612/wl_africa_afp/zambiawildlifepoaching_070612135653

[Hell Hath No Fury]

1. I really hate the human species sometimes....

:cry:

We suck. Hard.

[Acadia Blue]

14. Ditto. I can't read this stuff anymore. Powerless to do anytnhing.

And I hate the conditions that cause this to happen. But I think that even if people were not poor, some of them are such pigs and neanderthals that they would do this anyway. Look at the people who like to hunt anamils that are protected in America.

[Lorien]

15. You and me both

I have a friend who always says that the earth should pass through a comic cloud that would render us all infertile for twenty years to cut down on our species...I wish it were so. Unfortunately every other species will suffer before ours drops significantly in number 9probably due to climate change in the next 30 years or less).

[Jester_11218]

2. Humanity will be well served if...

we could publish an article entitled: Hunters kill the last two poachers in Africa!

Just dreaming.

My recent article on a similar subject:
Earth: A Beautiful Place if There Were No Humans
http://tvnewslies.org/blog/?p=630

[bluestateguy]

3. As punishment, let the other white rhino eat the poachers

nt

[TheMadMonk]

8. Um rhino's are herbivores.

[Double T]

4. Execution by heinous torture is TOO GOOD for the shooters of these.........

magnificent creatures. Homo sapien was the wrong creature to put in charge of this planet; ONLY chaos and destruction has come from his reign of terror.

[Beaverhausen]

5. Jesus Christ

Killing the last rhino for it's fucking horn. That is sick. Fuck those people.

[Orsino]

10. Now imagine how much...

...the very last rhino's horn is worth.

[leftchick]

6. WTF are they going to Kill when all of the Fucking Rhino Horns are Gone?

don't these fuckheads ever think about that? And fuck the assholes that buy poached animal products. This makes me so sick.

:cry:

[Scout]

9. some other thing that "they" decide is a fertility and/or male potency enhancer... n/t

[Coventina]

17. People who belive in the magical cures made from these products

don't have the brains to see ahead that they won't have these "cures" once all the animals are gone. They just simply don't have the brain power.

Humanity. Pah! We no longer deserve to exist as a species.

[Selatius]

19. Greed tends to be a short-sighted beast. It doesn't think of the future, only the present.

The present says that white rhino horns fetch a premium on the black market.

[Barrett808]

7. Get ready, my friends, for the wave of extinctions

"Watching the world fall apart on television may be too much for even the stoutest brains to take." -- Book of the SubGenius, www.subgenius.com

[BootinUp]

11. Heavily guarded

Yet the poachers got in and hunted down these rhinos? Somethin smells.

[Straight Shooter]

12. Aarrrgghh.

:grr:

[THUNDER HANDS]

13. there are little over 1,200 left

White Rhinos.

[TX-RAT]

16. Only 1200?

The white rhino
The southern white rhino, rescued from near extinction a century ago, stands as one of the world’s greatest conservation success stories. From a single population of barely 20 animals in 1885, there are now more than 8,440 in 247 wild populations, with an additional 704 animals in captive breeding institutions worldwide. Numbers continue to increase in the wild, and the white rhino is now classified as Lower Risk – Conservation Dependent.

By contrast, the situation facing the future of the northern white rhino is critical. In 1960, there were an estimated 2,250 animals; today, only 25 animals are known to exist in the wild in a single population. There are nine ageing and non-breeding animals in two zoos and the subspecies is classified as Critically Endangered.


http://www.rhinos-irf.org/technicalprograms/afrsg/index...

[SKKY]

18. "True hunting's over, no heards to follow. Without game men prey on eachother."

[GoddessOfGuinness]

20. Maybe what they need is a bounty on poachers...

that is higher than the profit from rhino horns.

[TX-RAT]

22. Most poachers are shot on site in Africa.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

23. Only when caught...

Having a bounty on them that was more profitable than killing animals could make poachers turn against poachers.

[Matilda]

21. I'm only sorry that by the time humans die out,

most of the animals will already have gone.

They deserve the earth more than we do.

[Bryn]

24. Animals are Important!

If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.

~Chief Seattle of the Suwamish Tribe, letter to President Franklin Pierce