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Qilu.com Lightning News, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Under the COVID-19 epidemic, international travel stagnated last year, and the smuggling and poaching of wildlife products also decreased, but with the relaxation of restrictions in some countries, poachers have begun to act again. In South Africa, in order to reduce the risk of wild rhinos being hunted, animal protectors have taken a helpless step, artificially "cutting horns" to protect wild rhinos.
According to statistics, more than 80% of the world's rhinos live in South Africa, which makes South Africa a major disaster area for rhino poaching. Poachers hunt rhinos to obtain and sell rhino horns, and when poaching, they use anesthesia guns to put down rhinos, cut off the horns and fly away, often leaving the rhinos in place to lose too much blood and die.
In order to protect the rhinos, the staff of the nature reserve had to saw off the horns of the rhinos under protected conditions, hoping that the rhinos, which had lost their useful value, would escape the clutches of poachers.
Since April 2019, the Balurai Nature Reserve in South Africa has cut off the horns of 100 rhinos.
Affected by factors such as travel restrictions under the pandemic, only 394 rhinos were poached in South Africa in 2020, the lowest level since 2011.
In March last year, South Africa began a nationwide lockdown and in November of that year began to ease international travel restrictions. Since then, rhino poaching has begun to increase again. However, the sluggish tourism industry has tightened the reserve's budget, forcing cuts to anti-poaching patrols, and workers fear a resurgence of rampant poaching.
Reports show that the number of rhinos in Kruger National Park, where the Balulai Nature Reserve is located, has decreased by more than two-thirds over the past decade, from 11,800 in 2008 to more than 3,800 in 2019.