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| Location: |
Asia - South East Asia - Indonesia - Sumatra |
| Subject: |
Value |
| Species: |
Asian Rhino Species |
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Sumatra. In Sumatra, all parts of the rhino are used and all fetch high prices, reports Markus Borner, who spent three years on a field study of the surnatran rhino. So the incentives to poach are very strong and the ruthless illegal hunting is probably as important a reason for this rhino's decline as loss of habitat. Most of the horn is sold to Chinese, both inside and outside Sumatra, who value it as an aphrodisiac and a fever-reducing medicine.
Sumatran people use small pieces as amulets, often mounted on a silver ring; this, it is believed, makes the wearer immune to the evil powers of the black magic that is practised throughout the island, protects him against poisoned food and drink by causing the dish or cup to break, and can extract the venom from a snake-bite.
Dried rhino meat is used as a medicine for leprosy, tuberculosis and diarrhoea, and people treat skin diseases with 'rhino oil', made by keeping a rhino skull for some weeks in coconut oil along with other magic ingredients, such as scrow horns and strangely formed plants.
Rhino shoulder blades are used to make cigarette holders, believed to have magical powers, and the dung is dried, fried in coconut oil or boiled in water and used as medicine.
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What chance have the rhinos?
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