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Tourism brings reason to protect rhinos

rhino.savannah September 28, 1996
Web posted at: 4:30 p.m. EDT

From Correspondent Gary Strieker

NGORONGORO CRATER, Tanzania (CNN) -- In Ngorongoro Crater, the growing crowds of tourists are for the most part looking for one special animal -- the endangered black rhinoceros. ( 23 sec./748K QuickTime movie) movie icon

Rhinos have already been wiped out in most parts of Africa where they were abundant only 25 years ago -- before they were massacred by poachers for their horns, worth thousands of dollars each on the black market in the Far East.

Recently, officials in African governments have confirmed what conservationists long suspected -- that as much as one- third of the rhino poaching done in the past was carried out by park rangers responsible for their protection.

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"It was a very difficult time when tourism was low," said Rian Labuschagne. "Very often rangers were not paid. Morale was very low."

But that has changed. In Tanzania, tourism may soon pass agriculture as the country's biggest source of revenue. And the growth in tourism makes every live rhinoceros a valuable national asset.

"We are trying our level best so poaching will never happen here again," said Laban Moruo of the Rhino Protection Unit that oversees Ngorongoro's rhinos..

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After poachers killed yet another rhino last year, authorities turned serious. With aid from the Frankfurt Zoological Society, the Ngorongoro unit now has new men and equipment to carry out its mission -- to protect only 13 surviving rhinos where more than 100 once lived.

The rhinos live on the floor of a crater that looks small from the rim, but actually covers about 14 square miles (26 square kilometers.)

"The main problem was the rhinos were not monitored intensively enough, and then just not enough people in the field to protect them," said Labuschagne.

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The unit now keeps a close watch on each rhino, using foot patrols and vehicles, a mobile ranger station in a trailer, and an observation post on the wall of the crater.

The operation in Ngorongoro is one of several in eastern, central and southern Africa. Each is a desperate attempt to save a small pocket of rhinos -- less than 2,000 remain in the wild -- that have so far escaped the poachers bullets.

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