• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Radioactive Rhino Horns Hoped To Save Species From Poaching

June 27, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Scientists in South Africa have for the first time inserted radioactive material into the horns of live rhinos, as part of efforts to make the horns easier to detect at international borders and curb poaching.

Advertisement

After facing near extinction, successful conservation work has seen rhino populations in Africa back on the up, with the vast majority of those animals living in South Africa. However, their home still has a poaching problem; 499 rhinos were hunted and killed in the country last year, and the rangers that try to protect them are increasingly finding themselves in the line of fire, too.

Advertisement

Poachers target the animals for their distinctive horns, which are highly sought after in Asian countries for their use in traditional medicines.

“This has led to their horns currently being the most valuable false commodity in the black-market trade, with a higher value even than gold, platinum, diamonds and cocaine. Sadly, rhino horns play a large role in funding a wide variety of criminal activities globally,” said Professor James Larkin, director of the University of the Witwatersrand’s Radiation and Health Physics Unit, in a statement.

Larkin has spearheaded the Rhisotope Project, which has come up with a novel way of tackling the poaching problem – radioactivity.



Advertisement

After three years in development, on June 24 Larkin and the team began inserting low-dose, non-toxic radioisotopes into the horns of 20 live – but very much sedated – rhinos living in the UNESCO Waterberg Biosphere Reserve.

“Each insertion was closely monitored by expert veterinarians and extreme care was taken to prevent any harm to the animals,” Larkin explained. “Over months of research and testing we have also ensured that the inserted radioisotopes hold no health or any other risk for the animals or those who care for them.”

The goal of using radioactive material is to make poached horns easier to detect at places like airports and harbors, where there are already plenty of radiation detectors in place. Not only that, but it’s hoped that it’ll prevent the horns from being poached in the first place because, being radioactive, they’d no longer be fit for human consumption.

“Ultimately, the aim is to try to devalue rhinoceros horn in the eyes of the end users, while at the same time making the horns easier to detect as they are being smuggled across borders,” said Larkin.

Advertisement

The team will now keep a close eye on the animals over the next six months, monitoring their vital statistics and overall health. All being well, it’s hoped the same technique could be applied to other animals that are the target of poaching, like elephants and pangolins.

“This novel approach pioneered by Prof Larkin and his colleagues has the potential to eradicate the threat of extinction our unique wild-life species, especially in South Africa and on the continent,” concluded Professor Lynn Morris, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Innovation at Wits University.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. U.S. banking lobby groups oppose proposed tax reporting law
  2. US stock futures lead Asia lower, dollar gains on yen
  3. Shark-Infested Lakes Exist And You Might Have Already Swum In One
  4. Over 6,000 Scans Reveal What ADHD Looks Like In The Brain

Source Link: Radioactive Rhino Horns Hoped To Save Species From Poaching

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • New Nightmare Fuel Unlocked: Watch The First Known Capture Of A Shrew By A False Widow Spider
  • Peculiar Glow In The Milky Way Might Be Dark Matter Signature
  • “I Was Scared To Death”: Missouri’s Great Cobra Scare Of 1953 Was Eventually Solved After 35 Years
  • Two Spacecraft To Fly Through Comet 3I/ATLAS’s Ion Tail – Will They Be Able To Catch Something?
  • Pioneering Heavy Water Detection Suggests Earth’s Water Might Be Older Than The Sun
  • PhD Students’ Groundbreaking New Technique Rescues JWST’s Highest Resolution Data
  • Popcorn-Like Parasites And Weird Worms Among 14 New Species Discovered In The World’s Oceans
  • Poem From 1181 CE Cairo Appears To Reference A Rare Galactic Supernova
  • With “Iridescent Live Colors”, Newly Discovered Beautiful Dwarfgoby Lives Up To Its Name (Mostly)
  • “Anti-Tail” And Odd 594-Kilometer Feature Found On Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS By Keck Observatory
  • Why Do We Call It A “Hamburger” When It Doesn’t Contain Ham?
  • What Aristotle Got Wrong About The Octopus
  • The World’s Largest Island Is Shrinking And Shifting
  • Record-Breaking Marshmallow Planet – It’s A Cold, Peculiar World On A Very Slanted Orbit
  • Distinctive Rocks Might Be Remnants Of Earth Before The Collision That Made The Moon
  • Bright Northern Lights Across America Expected This Week As 3 Coronal Mass Ejections Fly Towards Earth
  • Brain Implant Enables Paralyzed Man To Feel And Use Objects Using Someone Else’s Hands
  • “This Is A Really Big Deal”: Brain Training Significantly Improves Key Neurochemical Levels In World First
  • “Wholly Unexpected”: First-Ever Fossil Paranthropus Hand Raises Questions About Earliest Tool Makers’ Identity
  • For Centuries, Nobody Knew Why Swiss Cheese Has Holes. Then, The Mystery Was Solved.
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version