{"id":790,"date":"2014-01-07T04:00:47","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T04:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/?p=790"},"modified":"2014-01-13T22:53:35","modified_gmt":"2014-01-13T22:53:35","slug":"lessons-from-the-black-rhino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/lessons-from-the-black-rhino\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the Black Rhino"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_4253\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Most readers are likely aware that Western black rhinos went extinct in recent years.\u00a0 By far, the two largest factors in driving this extinction were habitat loss and poaching.\u00a0 Despite millions of dollars spent and many laws passed attempting to stem the trade of rhino horns, Western black rhinos were wiped off the face of the planet largely in a few decades.<\/p>\n

Let us imagine a different scenario:<\/p>\n

Back around 1970, a small number of rhino were allowed to be removed from the wild and kept by private owners.\u00a0 Several ranchers in Texas spent lots of money and each imported several rhinos.\u00a0 They built them huge pastures\u2014in some cases larger than the area they had in the \u201cwild.\u201d They spent lots of money on veterinary care and enrichment because their profit depended upon healthy, long lived animals.\u00a0 They bred them and grew their herds.\u00a0 Once every 18 months or so, each rhino was sedated and its horn removed at the same time routine veterinary procedures were performed. When they awakened, they were in no pain, and their horns grew back in around a year. The ranchers made lots of money, much of which they put back into their rhino operations, and they worked together to improve the care and husbandry of rhinos, and created a database so they could breed the healthiest and strongest.\u00a0 They sold babies to other people looking to get into the rhino-horn business. \u00a0And a small but thriving industry was born.<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly a few incompetent, unscrupulous, or greedy people would do a bad job\u2014a few rhinos would suffer and die. But the overwhelming majority would be well cared for, and the species would be safe and thriving. \u00a0There would be thousands of healthy black rhinos today, well-cared for on ranches not only in Texas, but in Africa and elsewhere. \u00a0There would be plenty of specimens to repopulate the wild. Yes, they would be \u201ccaptive,\u201d but would that be worse or better than extinct?<\/p>\n

This scenario did not occur, and in fact was not even broadly discussed, because the animal rights movement was so effective at persuading people that animals cannot be humanely utilized, that animals belong only in the \u201cwild.\u201d They passed law after law \u201cprotecting\u201d black rhinos from any captive future, and prohibiting the rhino-horn trade, but in doing so obliterated the very fiscal incentive that might have motivated some people to allocate land and resources to breeding these animals.\u00a0 They protected black rhinos straight into extinction.<\/p>\n

The phrase, \u201cbetter dead than caged\u201d has often been proclaimed by those who believe animals should never be kept.\u00a0 I wonder, would the Western black rhinos agree?<\/p>\n

This question is worth contemplating, not merely for our own edification, but also because there are many other species, and other subspecies of rhino, on a similar trajectory.\u00a0 Should we save them to live with us or let them go extinct?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most readers are likely aware that Western black rhinos went extinct in recent years.\u00a0 By far, the two largest factors in driving this extinction were habitat loss and poaching.\u00a0 Despite millions of dollars spent and many laws passed attempting to stem the trade of rhino horns, Western black rhinos were wiped off the face of […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,48,4,115],"tags":[49,155,154],"class_list":["post-790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-legislation","category-animal-rights","category-ethics-of-animal-ownership","category-exotic-animals","tag-captivity","tag-extinction","tag-rhino","category-116-id","category-48-id","category-4-id","category-115-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-line-bottom","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":794,"href":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talentedanimals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}