Tourism brings reason to protect rhinos
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)
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.
"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..
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.
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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