An African National Park Stops Playing Tour Guide to Poachers
By Michael Frank, Adventure Journal on December 13th, 2011
With rhinos nearing extinction because of poaching, South Africa’s Kruger National Park, in eastern South Africa, has removed maps that used to tell tourists where the elusive beasts were last spotted…and it was probably helping poachers, too. Now, waaay after the fox has gotten into the hen house, camp managers have stopped the practice. Not, apparently, that it’s saving the animals from poachers, who kill the rhinos because their horns are used in bogus medicine favored in many Eastern cultures. Sadly, in the past week, six rhino carcases have been found in the park, adding to the record 405 rhinos that have been killed in the country so far this year, compared to 333 last year. The poaching has driven Africa’s white and black rhinos onto the global list of endangered and critically endangered species.
