Or even better than counterfeiting, you could just say the bone meal has the same properties as rhino horn (which it does) and fewer calories, or less trans fats, or more probiotics or some crap.
So usuboy17, are you suggesting we preserve rhinos by putting them on ranches and just harvesting the horns? If so, I think you’ve missed the point the conservationists are trying to make.
Oh, I dunno about that - I figured the main point of buying rhino horn was to demonstrate that you were capable (i.e. rich and with enough of a bad-boy streak to deal with criminals, etc.) of buying rhino horn. Trying to pitch something less exotic doesn’t serve this need. If anything, I’d sell the bone-meal fake at the same or even higher price than the going rate for rhino-horn, satisfying the expectation of the clients and making even greater profits since I don’t have to go to the expense of actually going out and killing rhinos. I could use some of this revenue to bribe various officials to condemn my product (boosting my cred) and even let them stage phony “seizures” of some of my shipments (to boost theirs).
Fact is, anyone who’d buy a rhino-horn aphrodisiac is a fucking moron and I have little or no ethical problem cheating fucking morons out of their money.
I don’t think you could say that bones have the same properties as rhino horn, since the belief of rhino horns being an aphrodisiac stems from the horn looking similar to a phallus. I’m not suggesting that we do this, I have just wondered if it would work and what affects it would have. If you believe I have missed the point conservationists are trying to make, then please enlighten me.
Rhinos object rather strenuously to having their horns taken while they’re still alive.
What would rhino farming refer to and, pray tell, is there also a rhino hydroponics?
Frankly, I like the rodeo idea better.
While you can preserve species on ranches or big ranges, the problem becomes that after awhile the animals forget how to be, well animals.
Then you have a bunch of semi-tame, semi-wild animals and your stuck with what to do with them.
As for making counterfeit rhino horn it wouldn’t work. All that would do is drive up the market for certified rhino horn.
For example, when the Russians said they were on the verge of creating artifical diamonds that couldn’t be distinguished from “real” diamonds, DeBeers simply responded by saying they would place a watermark on their “real” diamonds to assure customers/clients that they were getting the real thing.
Thus the Russian diamonds would be labled “fake” even if they weren’t.
Maybe someone could invent a way to grow agglutinated hair in the shape of a horn, and the end users would be none the wiser.
Actually, rhino horn is made from keratin, which is the same stuff as hair and nails. So, you’d have to grind up hair and nails, not bone meal. You know, to get the same bogus effects. You’d get different bogus effects from grinding up bone meal, I imagine.
And maybe the poachers will sell their product with a video of them cutting the horns off the rhino to verify authenticity.
Since the rhino horn doesn’t do anything, it would be easy to say other bones do the same - and it would be true. (I don’t mind depriving idiots of their money; the only difference between my idea and Bryan Ekers’ is that mine might not technically be counterfeit, so that’s one less legal hurdle.) I wouldn’t be surprised if the folk myth comes from the shape of the horn, but so what? I don’t think most people know that. It’s an ignorant folk superstition.
I’m still not sure what you’re trying to suggest, then. What do you mean ‘would it work?’ Are you asking if it would reduce the killing of rhinos? Maybe, but I doubt it would do much. After all the rhinos are not going to volunteer to have their horns harvested and the people poaching the horns don’t give a crap about shooting the animals.
I don’t think conservationists would support industrializing the abuse of animals as an alternative to killing them. And as you said earlier, this wouldn’t help any other species. Wildlife preserves tend to be for many animals, and wouldn’t this just be for rhinos?
Well, I have my doubts that somebody buying “rhino horn powder” from his local apothecary brings along a microscope to check the purity, but sure - make up a fake from whatever cheap substitute is most likely to pass and begin marketing. Get a few African officials to publicly condemn you and I figure you’re good to go.
Just fighting a small amount of ignorance. I always thought it was cool that their horn was basically matted hair.
Heh.
Conservationists are as concerned about their habitat as they are about the animals themselves. Do you see any problems with a wildlife habitat being bulldozed under once the endangered creatures are put in your proposed slaughterhouses? If not, you definitely do not understand what Conservation is all about.
Bulldozing the wildlife habitat after the species is put in a ranch or slaughterhouse (I can see why it would be viewed this way) would not be the goal of a ranch for mega-fauna. Basically it could be used to preserve the species in the wild by allowing an outlet for poachers. The poachers could turn to farming these animals for whatever they need, instead of illegally poaching the wild species. It would, in a way, be a sacrifice of individuals for the preservation of the species.
Unless the “ranching” activity is more profitable than poaching, the poachers won’t care. Then you’d have some people ranching while the poaching continues in the wild.
I think that’s what he’s saying…there’s a demand for rhino horn that right now can only be met by poaching. So set up rhino farms to fufill the demand so that people don’t have to poach wild ones. Sort of like establishing fish fams to prevent overfishing of wild fish. I don’t know if it would work, but it sounds like that’s what he’s arguing.
Wouldn’t that just bring the price of rhino horn down and increase demand?
But tame rhinos don’t possess the mojo of wild rhinos-everyone knows that…or they soon will via structured rumor mongering. Also, rhino poachers are dangerous bastards who will kill to keep their ill-gotten gains. I can tell you what will happen to anyone that attempts to start a “rhino farm”.
This thread would be much cooler if it was about charismatic mega-fauna and rhino racing.