A report by international conservation monitors has suggested that China may be importing white rhino from South Africa for farms where they are harvested for their horns.

Although the report states that evidence that the rhinos are being imported for such farms needs verification, the sheer numbers of rhinos being imported far exceeds what would be needed for the tourism industry.

The monitors have found that China has imported 141 live white rhino from South Africa since 2000, are a set to deliver a full report of their findings to the next CITES in Qatar this weekend.

The discovery has alarmed British and European Union officials, who plan to ask the Chinese to explain if they are allowing rhino farming.

Asia’s native rhinos are among the most endangered in the world, with the Javan rhino having an estimated 130 creatures left, while the closely related Sumatran rhino numbers only about 300.

But there is growing concern over African rhinos, as even though they are more numerous, the rate at which their numbers are dwindling is highly alarming.

Of the two African species, black rhinos number only about 4,200 while there are an estimated 17,500 white rhinos left. These days most are kept in reserves and wildlife parks, unlike a century ago when hundreds of thousands of animals roamed Africa.

Poaching activity in Africa continues to escalate despite the increased attention as a result of the approaching CITES.

The recent acceleration is likely to be due to surging demand for rhino horn in Asian traditional medicine. Despite being made mainly of keratin, the same protein found in fingernails and hair, the ground-up horn is reputed to calm fevers such as malaria.

Rhino horn is now so valuable that Vietnamese embassy officials have been caught trying to smuggle horns back home. Similarly, South Africa has seen a surge in applications from Vietnamese hunters for licences to shoot captive-bred animals in private wildlife reserves.

This increased poaching activity makes the possibility of rhinos being exported for harvesting very worrying, as it would continue to drive up the rate of decline of the creatures beyond the disturbing level that it currently stands at.

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