Dundee High School and Project Rhino

Dundee High School artists have thrown their creative talent behind Project Rhino in a bid to stem the horrendous poaching of rhinos in the province. Chantel Carter and her art students at Dundee High last week arranged an art exhibition to garner funds for the Herculean effort required to combat the scourge of rhino poaching.

The exhibition was arranged in cooperation with Lawrence Munro of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife. Lawrence is engaged in the curiously-named ZAP-Wing (Zululand Anti-poaching )partnership between Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and Project Rhino to provide aerial surveillance for anti-poaching measures to game reserves in Northern KZN.

Lawrence, a former Dundee High Headboy, presented a slideshow with gruesome pictures taken at poaching incident. These pictures portray a visceral reality which very few, if any, people really know about. Rhinos with half their faces chopped off, quite often while the animal is still very much alive, but obviously not for very much longer. Rhino poaching have increased exponentially since 2007, and the figures are actually mindboggling. The number of arrests that had been effected in terms of rhino poaching this year, is 194. In November of 2013 only, 840 rhinos had been slaughtered for their horns.

Rhino horns is actually nothing more than compressed hair, and has no medicinal value whatsoever. It has never been used for medicinal purposes in Africa. There is, however, an enduring belief in the world outside of Africa that it can cure cancer, is an aphrodisiac and can reduce pain and fever in powdered form. This makes it worth more than gold or cocaine out there. The actually tragic statistic in this sorrowful tale is that the poacher gets almost none of this money, and the most goes to the dealer that sells it to the end-user.