Wildlife groups plan to relocate 80 rhinoceros from South Africa to Australia in a bid to prevent them being hunted to extinction, one of the project’s leaders said on Friday.
Poaching is on the rise in Africa, driven by demand from China and Vietnam where rhino horn, used in traditional medicine, can sell for around $65,000 per kilogram, according to estimates by conservationists.
Around 1,300 rhino were killed illegally in Africa last year.
The Australian Rhino Project and South Africa’s Elephants, Rhinos and People (ERP) plan to begin relocating the animals this year to establish an “insurance population”.
If the project is successful, more rhinos could be flown to other “safe havens” in Texas and Florida.
“Poachers will go where it is easy to poach. It is easier to poach rhinos in Africa than in Australia or America,” ERP Director Wouter van Hoven told Reuters.
“It’s not that we want to get the rhinos out of Africa but we need to put some rhinos into a safe deposit box.”