In the past decade, we have seen a direct impact of humans on the population of wild rhinos. Rhinos are magnificent animals living mainly in the plains of Africa. Rhino horns are believed to hold health benefits treating many sicknesses. This however, is not necessarily the case. Rhino horns are made of the same material as human hair and fingernails. Despite this realization by scientists, poachers continue to hunt rhinos for their horns. When these rhinos are hunted, they are either killed by guns or are tranquillized and put to sleep. While alive, their horns are then detached from their bodies by saws or other sharp devices. They are then often left alive to die slowly.
This terrible act of cruelty needs to stop. Today, there are approximately only 20,000 rhinos left in the wild. With nearly 1,000 rhinos being killed for their horns every year, we could see the species become extinct very soon. Their horns have created a market producing around 17 billion dollars per year. This is all for the same material as our fingernails. A rhino’s horn has no medical value but these poachers and buyers refuse to accept this fact. In order to protect these rhinos, there are many various groups which track down poachers but lack the funding to make a huge impact on the poaching community. We can help these groups by donating money in order to give rhinos a better future protected from poachers.
If you would like to donate here is a website: https://www.rhinoconservationbotswana.com/make-a-donation
Human and Animal Relations 
This is so touching to see how much hunting has affected the wild life. I never realized how much humans have hurt the environment, and I can’t imagine how hurtful we’ve been to the animals in the wild. Are there other ways that we can help to prevent the rhinos from being hunted for the horns? How long will it be until rhinos go extinct?
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Rhino Comment
I totally agree that rhinos and certain other species need to be more carefully protected by the government, businesses, and people so that they do not unnecessarily go extinct. I had some pretty lengthy discussions about extinction in my Contemporary Issues class where we specifically talked about how hornbills have in recent years been targeted for their beaks. We noticed that Asian culture has been the cause of many poaching instances, and that it is unlikely for these peoples to change their practices anytime soon. It seems as if we’ll just keep picking off one animal after another until cats and dogs end up as precious Chinese artifacts too.
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