 Reference Base  Rhino poaching in Namibia from 1980 to 1990 and the illeg... |
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Martin, E.B., 1993. Rhino poaching in Namibia from 1980 to 1990 and the illegal trade in the horn. Pachyderm 17: 39-51, figs. 1-5, tables 1-5
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World |
| Subject: |
Trade |
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All Rhino Species |
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From 1985 to 1989, more rhinos were poached in India's north eastern state of Assam than anywhere else in Asia: a minimum of 243 animals (see Table II). The main reason for this was that the price the poachers obtained for the horn from these greater one-homed rhinos rose steadily from about $2,600 per kilo in 1986 to $6,250 in 1989 as there was a sharp increase in demand for Indian rhino horn in Taiwan. In Taipei in early 1990, the import price for it was over $20,000 a kilo while the wholesale price was a phenomenal $45,000 a kilo. The Taiwanese pay the highest prices in the world for Indian horn which they believe is of the best quality medicinally of all the five rhino species. Some people in Taiwan are even buying Indian horn purely as an investment.
Several traders in Assam, from Dhing in Nagaon district, Behali on the northern bank of the Brahmaputra River, Naozan on the border with Nagaland, and from Bokakhat, collect the rhino horns from the poachers. From Assam the horns probably go south to Calcutta and then to eastern Asia. In the early 1980s, most horn went to Singapore because this city state was not a member of CITES until early 1987. However, in the late 1980s, the Taiwanese were spending more for the horn, so it was, and still is, shipped to Taiwan instead, directly or sometimes via Hong Kong. On our recent survey in Singapore, carried out in December 1990, I could identify only one medicine shop (out of ten which had horn in 1988) still selling Indian rhino horn, compared with at least five in Taipei in the same year.
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