By Ed Stoddard
JOHANNESBURG, June 21 (Reuters) – Flies buzz around a
hulking pile of flesh and muscle that lies rotting in South
Africa’s Kruger National Park with its eyes gouged out and
scimitar-like horns hacked off in the opening scenes of a
shocking new documentary on rhino poaching.
A series of still-photos of other gruesome kills flash
across the screen in “Rhino under threat”, a deeply disturbing
28-minute film available on video-sharing website YouTube that
has been made to drive home the horror of a rhino poaching
crisis which has reached alarming levels.
Made by UNTV and the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES), the film can be seen on YouTube on
this link: here
It debuted on Monday at the Rio +20 global environment
conference in Rio de Janeiro.
South Africa, home to close to the vast majority of the
planet’s rhinos, is the epicentre of the unfolding tragedy.
According to the latest data from South Africa’s department
of environmental affairs, as of June 15, 245 rhinos have been
poached in the country so far in 2012. At this rate the carnage
will almost certainly exceed the 448 slain last year.
A decade ago only a handful were being taken.
Elephant and rhino poaching is surging, conservationists
say, an illegal part of Asia’s scramble for African resources,
driven by the growing purchasing power of newly affluent Asians.
Continued…
