© Michel Gunther / WWF-CanonDehorning of a rhinoceros by a field researcher.
Park director António Abacar was quoted as saying this week that no rhinos had been seen since January, "which means that the ones that lived in the park are probably dead," according to the Portugal News.
With all the rhinos gone, poachers are now turning to elephants for their tusks. The horns and tusks are valued for their supposed medicinal value, despite the fact that horns are made of the same basic material as fingernails, with no healing properties.
The park spans 4,247 square miles (11,000 square kilometers), an area more than twice the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
Meanwhile, Scientific American reports that for the first time in 33 years, a hunter has been allowed to import a trophy into the United States from a black rhino he shot in Namibia, outraging conservationists.
that's one problem solved, now it's the elephants' turn to join the hit list, same as we enjoy here in the States, a land that long ago lost such species of nearly independent existence, so much so, that our 'great and glorious leaders' in the White House have created a new version that the president enjoys to name as targets. Perhaps Mozambique can do the same? Put a price on any and every poacher's head and see if the locals don't enjoy those targets just as much as the other animals in the land.