South African scientists have launched an anti-poaching campaign in which rhino’s horns will be injected with a radioactive material.<\/p>\n
The group, from the University of the Witwatersrand, said the process is harmless to rhinos but will allow customs officers to detect smuggled horns as they’re transported across the world.<\/p>\n
South Africa has the largest rhino population in the world, and hundreds of the animals are poached there every year.<\/p>\n
The university’s venture, called the Rhisotope Project, was launched on Friday after six years of research and testing.<\/p>\n
“Our goal is to deploy the Rhisotope technology at scale to help protect one of Africa’s most iconic and threatened species,” said Jessica Babich, head of the Rhisotope Project.<\/p>\n
“By doing so, we safeguard not just rhinos but a vital part of our natural heritage.”<\/p>\n
Tests conducted in the pilot study, which involved 20 rhinos, confirmed that the radioactive material was not harmful to the animals.<\/p>\n
“We have demonstrated, beyond scientific doubt, that the process is completely safe for the animal and effective in making the horn detectable through international customs nuclear security systems,” said James Larkin a professor at Wits University who is also part of the project.<\/p>\n
The Wits University researchers, who collaborated with the International Atomic Energy Agency, found horns could even be detected inside full 40-foot (six-metre) shipping containers.<\/p>\n
Each year since 2021, more than 400 rhinos have been poached in South Africa, says conservation charity Save the Rhino.<\/p>\n
The horns of African rhinos are often exported to Asian markets were they are used in traditional medicine and also seen as a status symbol.<\/p>\n
White rhinos are considered threatened, while black rhinos are critically endangered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South African scientists have launched an anti-poaching campaign in which rhino’s horns will be injected with a radioactive…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":110361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-110360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}