The Black Rhino

John Hume, a veteran game farmer and founder of the Mauricedale Game Ranch in South Africa, was deeply troubled by the record upsurge in black rhino poaching incidents and black-market horn thefts in 2010 and 2011. While the endangered black rhino represented only one segment of Mauricedale's hunting and farming businesses in 2011, the animal's survival was an important component of the ranch's and industry's growth potential in the future. As both a businessman and a rhino advocate, John Hume was contemplating an innovative idea that might help stop the decline of the black rhino: the creation of a market for legalized black rhino hunting. As he pondered the possibilities and alternatives to determine what his next move should be, Hume had several questions on his mind: Was the legalization of the international sale and trade of rhino horns a viable solution? Was it Hume's responsibility to save the black rhino, and was the animal a good investment? Excerpt UVA-E-0363 Mar. 8, 2012 The Black Rhino The very thing that makes the rhino valuable is the thing that is causing its extinction. —John Hume In early 2011, game farmer John Hume hoped that he could finally solve the black rhinoceros problem that had plagued him and his Mauricedale Game Ranch for more than a decade. As the largest private owner and breeder of rhino in South Africa, Hume had been at the center of the endangered-rhino conservation effort and controversy since the 1990s, when he began to transform legalized rhino harvesting into a profitable business model. As Hume gazed across the expansive South African veld and the Mauricedale ranch, he drummed his fingers anxiously on his desk. He had just read through the annual report issued by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission (SSC) African Rhino Specialist Group (AfRSG), which stated that the recent rise in criminal poaching of the endangered African rhino had risen to record levels. Hume thought carefully through the complex challenges that lay ahead for Mauricedale and wondered whether the creation of a market for black rhino hunting would be enough to save the endangered species from extinction. . . .