Kenya to microchip every rhino’s horn

Wikimedia Commons

Microchips to be placed in horn of every rhino in Kenya in attempt to tackle scourge of poaching.
Source The Telegraph
By Chris Irvine

Microchips will be placed in the horn of every rhinoceros in Kenya in an ambitious bid to tackle the scourge of poaching, wildlife officials have announced.

The World Wildlife Fund donated the chips as well as five scanners at a cost of $15,000 (£9,400). Tracking the rhinos – there are more than 1,000 in Kenya – to dart them and fit the device will cost considerably more.

Officials believe however that it will boost the ability to prosecute poachers or traffickers, allowing for all the horns to be traced, providing potential vital information on poaching and smuggling chains.

The chips will be inserted into the horn, which is made of keratin, the same composition as fingernails.

“Poachers are getting more sophisticated in their approach,” Paul Udoto, spokesman for the Kenya Wildlife Service said.

“So it is vital that conservation efforts also follow and embrace the use of more sophisticated technology to counter the killing of wildlife.”

The KWS said in a statement: “Investigators will be able to link any poaching case to a recovered or confiscated horn, and this forms crucial evidence in court, contributing towards the prosecution’s ability to push for sentencing of a suspected rhino criminal.”

Poaching has risen sharply in Africa in recent years, with the wildlife trafficking industry thought to be worth around £6.6 billion.

In August, a white rhino was shot dead in Nairobi National Park, one of Kenya’s most heavily protected parks, in the first such killing in the area for six years.

The lucrative Asian black market has contributed to the rise of deaths, with ground rhino horn being sought to treat ailments ranging from poor libido to cancer to “devil possession”. Since 2007, rhino deaths have risen by 3,000 per cent. The incident in Nairobi National Park was the 35th death of the year, already more than the 29 in Kenya in 2012.

In South Africa, drones have been deployed in the Kruger National Park to target increasingly sophisticated poachers who are using helicopters and night-vision goggles.

As well as rhinos, whole elephant herds have been massacred for their ivory. Earlier this week, Zimbabwean wildlife authorities said they had discovered another 10 elephant carcasses, bringing the number poisoned by cyanide for their ivory to more than 100 in the past month.

In May, the Duke of Cambridge warned that elephants, rhinos and tigers risked becoming “historical creatures in the same category as the Dodo” if more was not done to stop the illegal wildlife trade.

“Either we take action to stem the trade or we will run out of the animals – there is no other outcome possible,” he said.


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stop poaching,
do whatever it takes.
extinction is the most
fatal of mistakes.

Karen Lyons Kalmenson