{"id":9668,"date":"2012-04-05T15:51:50","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T13:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/04\/s-africa-fights-surging-rhino-killings-in-remote-kruger\/"},"modified":"2012-04-05T15:51:50","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T13:51:50","slug":"s-africa-fights-surging-rhino-killings-in-remote-kruger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africa-fights-surging-rhino-killings-in-remote-kruger\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa fights surging rhino killings in remote Kruger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Ed Stoddard<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa, April 5 (Reuters) &#8211;<br \/>\nA lmost two rhinos are being killed every day in South Africa to<br \/>\nmeet surging Asian demand for the animal&#8217;s horn which has become<br \/>\nmore valuable than gold, platinum and cocaine.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Investigators in a remote corner of South Africa&#8217;s Kruger<br \/>\nNational Park examined one of the latest victims of this crime<br \/>\nwave on Tuesday, a white rhino felled by a heavy calibre .375<br \/>\nrifle shot.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Killed only days before, the corpse had been stripped almost<br \/>\nbare by vultures and other scavengers, its ribs exposed and<br \/>\nrotting under the hot African sky.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The street value of rhino horn has soared to $65,000 a<br \/>\nkilogram as a belief takes hold among some in Southeast Asia<br \/>\nthat taking it can prevent, and even cure, cancer.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>National Parks data shows that as of Wednesday, 159 rhinos<br \/>\nhad been killed in South Africa in 2012. At this rate, more than<br \/>\n600 will be lost to poachers this year compared with 448 in<br \/>\n2011.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our poachers come in from Mozambique,&#8221; said Ken Maggs, head<br \/>\nof the National Parks environmental crime investigation unit, as<br \/>\nhis team swept the nearby bush with metal detectors.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Magg&#8217;s team find a shell casing 30 metres (100 feet) from<br \/>\nthe corpse. They take a DNA sample from the dead animal which<br \/>\ncan be used as evidence if the animal&#8217;s horn is found by police.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Journalists who were flown into the crime scene by<br \/>\nhelicopter, somewhere close to the Mozambique border, were asked<br \/>\nnot to give its precise location such is the fear that the<br \/>\nrhinos&#8217; tramping grounds become widely known.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ed Stoddard KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa, April 5 (Reuters) &#8211; A lmost two rhinos are being killed every day in South Africa to meet surging Asian demand for the animal&#8217;s horn which has become more valuable than gold, platinum and cocaine. Investigators in a remote corner of South Africa&#8217;s Kruger National Park examined [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-9668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}