We are very concerned about the escalating elephant and rhino poaching, how their horns are hacked off with chainsaws and machetes, causing an agonizing death.
In a recent article publishied on TakePart, Richard Conniff (author of The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth), explains how led by a veterinarian in South Africa, surgeons from around the world have come together to fight rhino poaching.
Will Fowlds, a 42-year-old veterinarian, was living at Amakhala Game Reserve outside Port Elizabeth, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, when he got the call in February 2011. Poachers had attacked a rhino on a neighboring reserve. After a moment, the owner of the reserve added, “William, he’s still alive.”
When Fowlds arrived at the scene, the owner simply pointed him into the bush. He’d already seen too much. Fowlds found the rhino propped up on three legs, with his mouth pushed into the ground as a kind of crutch. His left front leg was crippled, from having been caught under his own massive weight after the poachers’ tranquilizer knocked him out. His face was hacked open, with loose flesh hanging off either side. Blood bubbled in the exposed nasal passages.
You can pledge to become an anti-poaching advocate on TakePart.
(Photo Credit: Shutterstock)
