A South African university has launched an anti-poaching campaign to inject the horns of rhinoceroses with radioactive isotopes, which it says are harmless to the animals but can be detected by customs agents at airports and borders.
The Rhisotope Project, a collaboration involving the University of the Witwatersrand, nuclear energy officials and conservationists, injected five rhinos on Thursday. The university hopes this will be the start of a mass injection of the declining rhino population.
Last year, about 20 rhinos at a sanctuary were injected with isotopes in trials that paved the way for the launch. Tests confirmed that the radioactive material was not harmful to the rhinos and that even low levels could be recognised by radiation detectors.
“We have demonstrated, beyond scientific doubt, that the process is completely safe for the animal and effective in making the horn detectable through international customs nuclear security systems,” said James Larkin, chief scientific officer at the Rhisotope Project. He added that even a single horn with significantly lower levels of radioactivity than what will be used in practice successfully triggered alarms in radiation detectors, and that horns could be detected inside full 40-foot shipping containers.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates the global rhino population has declined from about 500,000 at the beginning of the 20th century to approximately 27,000 today, due to demand for rhino horns on the hidden market. South Africa has the largest population with an estimated 16,000 rhinos, but about 500 are killed for their horns every year.
The university has urged private wildlife park owners and national conservation authorities to have their rhinos injected.
