Horn of Darkness: Rhinos on the Edge by Carol Cunningham

By Carol Cunningham

The black rhino is nature's tank, feared via all animals. Even lions will holiday off a hunt to detour round one. And but the black rhino is at the fringe of extinction, its numbers dwindling from 100,000 on the flip of the century, to lower than 2,500 at the present time. the reason being that during locations like Yemen, China, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, the rhino's horn is extra worthy than gold, so necessary that folks will chance their lives to reap it. to discourage rhino poachers, African governments have spent millions--on helicopters, paramilitary operations, fences and protect canine, even relocation to secure parts. ultimately, Namibia made up our minds to de-horn its rhino inhabitants, in a final ditch attempt to prevent the slaughter. In 1991, Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger, and their eighteen-month-old daughter Sonja, went to Namibia to weigh the results of de-horning on rhinos. In Horn of Darkness, they inform the tale of 3 years within the Namib wilderness, learning Africa's final great inhabitants of free-roaming black rhinos.
this is often the nearest such a lot readers will come to experiencing lifestyles within the last wilds of Africa. Cunningham and Berger, writing nate chapters, seize what it's prefer to depart the comforts of civilization, to camp for months at a time in a land packed with lethal predators, to check an animal that's reclusive, unpredictable, and hugely risky. The authors describe staking out water holes within the lifeless of the evening, creeping to inside of twenty-seven meters of rhinos to photo them, all of the whereas protecting a lookout for hyenas, elephants, and lions. They recount many heart-pounding escapes--one rhino forces Carol Cunningham up a tree, an unseen lion in scorching pursuit of hyenas races correct previous a frozen Joel Berger--and trap the adrenaline rush of inching toward a rhino that would flee--or charge--at any second. additionally they supply readers a transparent experience of the cautious, sufferer paintings keen on learning animals, the disappointment of lengthy days with no discovering rhinos or seeing people, dealing with warmth and thirst (the Namib wasteland is among the driest on Earth), with dust and bugs, riding 1000's of kilometers in a Land Rover packed to ability, slowing accumulating documents on 100 person rhinos over the process a number of years. and maybe most crucial, the authors exhibit that the knowledge they amassed means that the de-horning undertaking may backfire--that within the 4 years after de-horning begun, calf survival used to be down (the facts means that hyenas will be preying on calves and the horn much less moms could not protect their offspring). additionally they describe the darkish aspect of medical paintings, from the petty jealousy of alternative scientists--outside researchers have been frequently visible as ecological imperialists--to the talk that erupted after the authors released their findings, as livid officers of the Namibian conservation application denounced their findings and during delays and different strategies successfully withheld a allow to permit the couple to proceed their study.
Weaving jointly the old money owed of different naturalists, a vividly specific examine existence within the wild, and a behind-the-scenes glimpse of medical paintings and the darkish facet of the conservation circulate, Horn of Darkness is destined to be a vintage paintings at the average world.