SMALL ACTIONS. BIG IMPACTS.

• Free campaign resources
• Public event presentations
• Video link lessons and talks
• Public awareness initiatives

• Empower children to contribute to rhino conservation through our education initiative
• Increase public awareness by influencing public attitudes, emotions, knowledge, and behaviours 
• Influence policy makers and lobby for more stringent legislation and greater protection

We strongly oppose hunting for sport, recreation, or commercial incentive, and we refute the claim that hunting is an extension of conservation.  This act of stalking, killing, and posing with [dead] animals is a throwback to a colonial past that disrupts fragile ecosystems, undermines conservation efforts, and exploits disadvantaged and disenfranchised people.  

It is common for hunters to claim that they only hunt old, past their prime animals, but older animals play a crucial role in the ecosystem. Family units, social structures, breeding patterns, migration routes, and population resilience, such as finding food and water, depend on them.

The practice is often reserved for wealthy foreigners who target rare, exotic, healthy species with highly desirable characteristics such as large horns, tusks, or unusual colours that command higher prices.

Hunts are more often conducted on private reserves, who retain the revenue without providing any economic benefit to the wider community, which contributes to human-wildlife conflict, particularly in poorer communities.

There is cruelty, suffering, and prolonged death associated with hunting methods such as pursuit, driven, canned hunting, baiting and trapping. In contrast, euthanasia (from the Greek words eu (good) and thanatos (death) seeks to prevent or end suffering.

Such exploitation is indefensible and neither ethical, moral, justifiable, nor sustainable.

Action For Rhinos opposes any legalised international or domestic trade of rhino horns, trophy imports and exports or domestic sales of antique, worked rhinoceros horn or horn derivitives.  

Since modern conservation efforts are aimed at reducing commercial exploitation of wildlife, legalised sales are retrogressive. We believe international trade would be an inexcusable impediment to demand reduction and elimination campaigns and legitimise, popularise, and normalise the use of endangered species products while exploiting public naivety, misplaced beliefs, and misguided perceptions.

A legalised trade could complicate law enforcement, increase competition from the black market, and threaten the conservation of Asian rhinos and those in captivity.

In the past, experimental sales of prohibited species parts have failed to generate adequate conservation funds and have caused an increase in poaching by making the products accessible and affordable to previously excluded consumers. To dismiss the dire consequences of previous sales and repeat the actions again with rhino horn would be reckless.

A survey in 2021 found Vietnamese rhino horn consumers were willing to pay more for horns sourced from wild and semi-wild rhinos as a result of their perceived quality and potency, and those who could already afford rhino horn were unconcerned with legality.

Wildlife commodification increases the likelihood of overexploitation. To maximise market value, breeding practices could manipulate horn weight, dimension, length, and condition. There is already evidence of this in the legalisation of the trade of the Siamese crocodile. Despite having more than 700,000 Siamese crocodiles in captivite facilities almost exclusively bred for commercial purposes, the species has less than 1000 wild specimens and is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN.

Unless items are being used as evidence in criminal cases, Action For Rhinos believes all rhino horn stockpiles should be destroyed. Stock inventory will always pose a storage, security, financial, and administration burden, regardless of how robust standard operating procedures are.

The quality and potential resale value of rhino horns can deteriorate over time due to factors such as temperature and weevil infestations.

As long as prohibited wildlife derivatives exist, there is an expectation of a potential legalisation of the trade.

The destruction of these items is a symbolism of commitment to species preservation and sends a clear message that wildlife crimes will not be tolerated, and no one will benefit financially from them.