Published by the government of Zimbabwe
24 December 2007
Harare — ZIMBABWE has intensified dehorning all the rhinos under the "save the rhino campaign" in a bid to curb rampant poaching of one of the world's most endangered species.
In an interview, National Parks and Wildlife Authority public relations manager Retired Major Edward Mbewe said the campaign was aimed at cutting down the rate of poaching.
"The save rhino campaign is meant to create awareness and a situation where poachers do not get anything from killing rhinos. Rhinos are a target because of their horns. The exercise is very expensive so we are working with various wildlife conservation organisations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature who are funding the exercise.
"We are also translocating rhinos to safer conservancies to protect them from poachers and also boost the population of the endangered animal," he said.
Translocation would also be carried out in areas where conservancies have exceeded their carrying capacity. Rtd Maj Mbewe said in some instances poachers killed the rhinos even when they had been dehorned giving the example of the killing of three rhinos at Imire Game Park recently.
He said the authority was training workers from conservancies on how to deal with poachers.
"During this exercise we will also do ear notching for identification purposes when we do rhino monitoring. This exercise will help us in determining home ranges for rhinos and relocate some if they are concentrated in one area."
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