4 ms·

I'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 th

I'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 ago
You 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 ago
  It 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)
  - fixxer 11y ago
    there are a couple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_oryx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_oryx
LordKano 11y ago
Exactly! We won't see the extinction of the chicken, cow or pig as long as there is an incentive to keep them alive. Rhino farming would make it more profitable and thus more likely to protect them and keep them breeding.
- yellowapple 11y ago
  Plus, I've always wanted to try a rhino steak.
- munificent 11y ago
  > We won't see the extinction of the chicken, cow or pig While red junglefowl and wild boar are doing OK, the aurochs is extinct. If you just incentivize rhino horns, you don't incentivize preserving the species or genetic diversity.
  - Amezarak 11y ago
    Another example would be the passenger pigeon. Went from plentiful and delicious food staple to extinct.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Consider cows. We eat a lot of cows. In a few years, we would make cows go extinct. Except we also breed a lot of cows so that it doesn't happen. While many animals are far harder to raise than cows, the difficulty results in lower numbers and thus increased rarity which thus increases the price of the animal once brought to maturity. Any animal that is risking extinction from being hunted should be sufficiently desirable to make this equation balance out to a sufficient population of the animal being raised. The only issue I really see is that in the long term this will likely lead to such species being slowly domesticated.

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 ago

You 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 ago
It 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)
- fixxer 11y ago
  there are a couple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_oryx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_oryx

LordKano 11y ago

Exactly! We won't see the extinction of the chicken, cow or pig as long as there is an incentive to keep them alive. Rhino farming would make it more profitable and thus more likely to protect them and keep them breeding.

yellowapple 11y ago
Plus, I've always wanted to try a rhino steak.
munificent 11y ago
> We won't see the extinction of the chicken, cow or pig While red junglefowl and wild boar are doing OK, the aurochs is extinct. If you just incentivize rhino horns, you don't incentivize preserving the species or genetic diversity.
- Amezarak 11y ago
  Another example would be the passenger pigeon. Went from plentiful and delicious food staple to extinct.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

Consider cows. We eat a lot of cows. In a few years, we would make cows go extinct. Except we also breed a lot of cows so that it doesn't happen. While many animals are far harder to raise than cows, the difficulty results in lower numbers and thus increased rarity which thus increases the price of the animal once brought to maturity. Any animal that is risking extinction from being hunted should be sufficiently desirable to make this equation balance out to a sufficient population of the animal being raised. The only issue I really see is that in the long term this will likely lead to such species being slowly domesticated.