A sedated rhino is being ready earlier than a gap is drilled into its horn and isotopes rigorously inserted, at a rhino orphanage in Mokopane, South Africa, Thursday, July 31, 2025.
Alfonso Nqunjana/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Alfonso Nqunjana/AP
MOKOPANE, South Africa (AP) — A South African college launched an anti-poaching marketing campaign Thursday to inject the horns of rhinos with radioactive isotopes that it says are innocent for the animals however could be detected by customs brokers.
Below the collaborative mission involving the College of the Witwatersrand, nuclear power officers and conservationists, 5 rhinos had been injected in what the college hopes would be the begin of a mass injection of the declining rhino inhabitants.
They’re calling it the Rhisotope Challenge.
Professor James Larkin drills a gap right into a rhino’s horn to inject radioactive isotopes, at a rhino orphanage in Mokopane, South Africa, Thursday, July 31, 2025.
Alfonso Nqunjana/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Alfonso Nqunjana/AP
Final 12 months, about 20 rhinos at a sanctuary had been injected with isotopes in trials that paved the best way for Thursday’s launch. The radioactive isotopes even at low ranges could be acknowledged by radiation detectors at airports and borders, resulting in the arrest of poachers and traffickers.
Researchers at Witwatersrand’s Radiation and Well being Physics Unit say that assessments performed within the pilot research confirmed that the radioactive materials was not dangerous to the rhinos.
“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,” stated James Larkin, chief scientific officer on the Rhisotope Challenge.
“Even a single horn with significantly lower levels of radioactivity than what will be used in practice successfully triggered alarms in radiation detectors,” stated Larkin.
The assessments additionally discovered that horns may very well be detected inside full 40-foot transport containers, he stated.
The Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that the worldwide rhino inhabitants stood at round 500,000 at first of the twentieth century however has now declined to round 27,000 resulting from continued demand for rhino horns on the black market.
South Africa has the biggest inhabitants of rhinos with an estimated 16,000 however the nation experiences excessive ranges of poaching with about 500 rhinos killed for his or her horns yearly.
The college has urged personal wildlife park house owners and nationwide conservation authorities to have their rhinos injected.
