Dr. Awiti is the director of the East African Institute and assistant professor at Aga Khan University.
Early this year, a story in the New York Times described how 72 boxes of trinkets were all that remained after more than 100 elephants were slaughtered for their incisor teeth.
The trinkets included beads, chess sets, bone-white animal figures, bangles and toys, earrings, pendants and bracelets. Similarly, rhino horn is regarded as an irreplaceable ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine.
Its collection is responsible for the shameful massacre of tens of thousands of rhinos. The largest land creatures on the planet are being slaughtered to extinction for vanity and myth of healing.
Like biting your fingernails or munching equine hooves, rhino horn has no effect against pain or inflammation, or muscle spasm or stomach ailments. Elephants and rhinos are not nondescript organisms. They are fascinating, gentle giants.
More Stop This Massacre Of Elephants, Rhino | The Star.
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