This fills me with cold fury. From the BBC:
Efforts to save the black rhino from extinction have been dealt a blow by the killing of three adults who were part of a breeding programme in Zimbabwe.
For the past 20 years the family has been rearing the animals and returning them to the wild, but last week, in the dead of night, armed men in camouflage gear burst onto the site and shot dead all three adult females.
Not surprisingly, the shootings have caused deep alarm among conservation groups, not least because there have been a number of similar attacks in Zimbabwe this year.
One of them was just days away from giving birth. Her unborn calf died as well.
Black rhinos are sometimes shot by poachers, who sell their horns as dagger-handles or for use in Chinese medicine, but the Imire rhinos had recently been de-horned as a precaution, so they didn’t have any value to hunters.
They had no horns. They were worthless to poachers. How could anyone do such a horrible thing? They say it has to do with Zimbabwe’s land crisis, but Zimbabwe makes a great deal of what foreign money it does get from tourists who want to see the big African animals in the wild.
If this bothers you as much as it has bothered me, you can adopt a Black Rhino over at the WWF.
Would make a great christmas present for an animal-loving child, if you’re stuck for ideas.
