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A new study has found that concentrations of essential minerals inside rhino horns are too low to provide consumers with any health benefits, questioning their use in traditional Chinese medicine.
The scientists also revealed that rhino horns contained potentially toxic minerals; the lack of quality control testing and regulatory oversight makes it even more pressing to address the sales of rhino horn derivatives for consumption.
Researchers say that efforts to reduce consumer demand for rhino horn products must run in parallel with protection.
Fancy a taste of your own toenails? That’s what vendors in Vietnam or China could say when offering powdered rhino horn. This coveted “trophy” is made up of keratin, the same structural protein as human nails and hair. And a new study in Scientific Reports finds it about as nutritious, despite claims to the contrary, underlining the scientific consensus that consuming rhino horn has no real health benefits.
In parts of Asia where traditional Chinese medicine is deeply rooted, people have been consuming rhino horn for millennia. Medical texts from the 16th century show that rhino horn has been touted as a cure for ailments ranging from fever and rheumatism to snakebites and even demonic possession.
“Rhino horns have a long history of being sold as part of TCM [Traditional Chinese Medicine] by doctors who … believe that rhino horns … will dispel heat and clear toxins from the body,” said study lead author Terri Roth, head of the Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) at Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden in the U.S.
Yet the new research revealed that while beneficial minerals were present in rhino horn, they only occurred in very low concentrations — not enough to impart any kind of benefit.
The trade in rhino horn has long been the main threat to rhino populations in Africa and Asia, where poachers kill the animals and cut off their horns with a machete or chainsaw — sometimes while the animal is still alive. This makes understanding the components of rhino horn all the more important.
Reducing consumer demand to reduce poaching
Conservationists have deployed many creative initiatives to deter rhino poaching. Researchers in South Africa have recently injected radioactive material into rhino horns, so they can be picked up by radiation detectors at international border crossings.
Dehorning is another solution, where a rhino is regularly tranquilized and its horn cut off to make it less valuable as a poaching target. But even this doesn’t guarantee immunity to poaching. Besides, rhinos need their horns to assert dominance, defend themselves, steer their calves and forage in compact soils for hidden grasses.
According to Roth, it’s best to have many actions in play, given that the wildlife conservation landscape is changing constantly.
“Protecting wild rhinos from poachers is an absolute priority, but in so doing, we are only treating the symptoms of the problem,” she said.
Some organizations have therefore made tackling consumer demand for horns a priority, but it’s a strategy for the long haul.
“Changing long-held traditional beliefs takes years, sometimes generations, so while these longer-term efforts are put into action, it is vital we maintain anti-poaching efforts to buy the rhino enough time for demand reduction strategies to take effect,” Smith pointed out. “Without the immediate work being done to protect rhinos, there would be none left by the time demand reduction programs saw results. And alternatively, without the long-term goal of ending the demand, we will be stuck in a never-ending loop of intensive, and expensive, rhino protection.”
Smith said that she wishes more people would make the link between the live rhinos grazing peacefully in the wild and the horn powder, but added that it isn’t realistic.
“As long as the use of rhino horn is legitimized by governments within countries that have the highest demand for rhino horn, not only will there be cracks in the market for poached horn to slip through, but the power of messaging around not using horns will be diluted,” Smith pointed out.
Roth explained that she hopes her study will make people think twice about rhino horn consumption, but added that she’s “not naive enough” to think that scientific results will substantially sway public opinion. “In today’s world, people choose to believe science that supports what they want to do while disregarding that which doesn’t.”
Still, if there’s a chance that the absence of health benefits overturns even just a few people’s beliefs, scientists know that they ought to share it.