4 ms·
There is a start-up that tries to eliminate "the $750 million illegal rhino horn poaching trade by growing rhino horns made from rhino DNA and 3D printed kerati
by wuschel 11y ago
There is a start-up that tries to eliminate "the $750 million illegal rhino horn poaching trade by growing rhino horns made from rhino DNA and 3D printed keratin".
(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Pembient).
- 31reasons 11y agoPeople who are crazy enough to consume rhino horn for any purpose will discard this attempt as "fake rhino horn".
- george88b 11y agoNot if it is indistinguishable from the real thing and they have no idea as to its origins.
- wuschel 11y agoI agree. The trick will to i) undercut rhino horn prices and ii) make it undistinguishable from the original. Quite a challenge, but I like the idea.
- rdmcfee 11y agoMaybe it's more a lack of access to modern scientific knowledge than 'craziness'.
- 31reasons 11y agoSince when access to scientific knowledge stopped people from believing pseudo-science ?
- berberous 11y agoAre the main customers for items like this the poor and uneducated, or the wealthier segments of Asian society with plenty of access to modern scientific knowledge? Also, I wouldn't be surprised if it's analogous to the Dr. Oz / anti-vaccine set in the U.S. Those people have access to all the knowledge they could want, but you still couldn't shake their misguided beliefs out of them.
- 31reasons 11y agoRhino horns = illegal and dangerous = very expensive = rich buyers.
- DanBC 11y agohttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/16/rhino-horn-demand-in-vietnam-drops-by-more-than-33-in-one-year http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/16/rhino-hor... This article appears to support you. Letting people know that rhino horn is not medicine reduced the numbers of people wanting to buy rhino horn.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- DanBC 11y agohttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/16/rhino-horn-demand-in-vietnam-drops-by-more-than-33-in-one-year http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/16/rhino-hor... This article appears to support you. Letting people know that rhino horn is not medicine reduced the numbers of people wanting to buy rhino horn.
- TheGrassyKnoll 11y agoI was hoping the introduction of Viagra etc. would stop this nonsense.
- manigandham 11y agoWould people crazy enough to consume rhino horn even know real vs "fake" horn?
- dluan 11y agoTheir idea is that they'll dump their product into places where rhino horns shows up (e.g. in hair conditioner in SE Asia), which would then bring prices down for the real thing. Rhino horn is mainly keratin with extra hormones, which can be readily recreated. It's really fascinating, and similar to the arms race in detecting purity levels in drugs. Also, mobs and stuff too make it pretty exciting and non-typical 'startup' work.
- cgh 11y agoIt more or less worked with bear gall bladders. Where I live, black bear poaching for gall bladder export to China was a major issue. Now the Chinese breed black bears on farms for this purpose (the farm conditions are another matter - predictably horrible). Black bears are still poached but not at the same rates. To the Chinese, consuming these things (rhino horns, bear gall bladders) isn't crazy. It's more or less mainstream, though of course it has zero scientific credibility beyond the placebo effect.
- princeb 11y agobear bile is used to treat primary biliary cirrhosis. it can be synthesized, but if you don't have the equipment, bears will do.
- gohrt 11y agohard to call that a victory
- josinalvo 11y agoVictory be damned! =P Keeping the species alive is better than not. Now, we try to figure out humane farming, if we want to
- laichzeit0 11y agoI'm by no means an expert on this but I live in South Africa and we like to hunt game. The guys that I work with are regularly at game farms. One complaint they keep repeating is that game farmers don't want to own rhino because of many reasons, some of which (a) they are expensive (b) they are high risk (c) there is little return on investment (no coming here and looking at them on safari is not enough). High risk, expensive investments with little to no return are not a good deal. Making the sale of rhino horn legal is one way you could create the incentive to breed/keep these animals on their farms and also push up the supply of horns making it less profitable to poach. There are entire farms where crocodiles are bred just for their skin. People like crocodile skin, they make shoes and crap from them. Some people think rhino horn makes their dicks work. Ok fair enough, lets make a shitload of horns.
- glibgil 11y ago"I live in South Africa and we like to hunt game... Some people think rhino horn makes their dicks work." Checks out. This guy is from South Africa.
- fixxer 11y agoYou raise an interesting point. I've thought about this with respect to the Oryx, which has been extinct in the wild since the ~1920s, but found a niche on game farms in Texas and Argentina. Now, hunting the Oryx is illegal in the United States and I've wondered how long until the animal goes extinct. At $4000 to $7000 to hunt, it was a lucrative trade. I would guess that the issue with rhino/elephant would be resource management of a herd that does not hit breeding age for quite a few years. Of course, at these prices, that could work out. Personally, I think the Asian horn powder market is barbaric.
- Someone 11y agoIt looks like the oryx will not go extinct at all. It has been reintroduced in the wild, and isn't even called a endangered species anymore, 'just' vulnerable (https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/arabian_oryx_factsheet.pdf https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/arabian_oryx_factsheet.pd..., http://discover.iucnredlist.org/species/15569 http://discover.iucnredlist.org/species/15569)