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All for a piece of horn
Despite what some people might believe, the so-called aphrodisiac properties of rhino horn are greatly exaggerated. I have had the opportunity to try some in a potion and I can give you my word that there were no phenomenal increases in carnal behaviour or lustful deeds!
Why, you may well ask, was a vet experimenting with the aphrodisiac qualities of rhino horn when his whole philosophy is conservation and preservation of both wildlife and domestic animals? Well, as a student I did some work at the Pretoria Zoo, which had a magnificent resident rhino. He was about fourteen years old and his horn was very large, about one metre in length and a good thirty centimetres in diameter at its base. The horn is actually made up of very densely matted hair and not bone, as many people think.
The horn must have been itchy at its base for some reason and it appeared that it had been so for a very long time. There was a large steel gate at the entrance to the rhino’s enclosure and the bars of the gate were just wide enough apart to allow the rhino to stick the full length of his horn through the bars. He would then rub his horn back and forth at the base in order to relieve himself of the itch. Unbeknown to the rhino, he also scraped powder from the base of his horn at the same time. The zoo staff members were quick to take advantage of this opportunity, and the powder was collected and sold to the ‘muti’ shop for quite a large sum of money. So in this situation there was no need to kill the rhino for his horn. Instead, the patient staff painstakingly collected the small amounts that he yielded daily until there was enough to make a sale. This really was a continuous renewable supply of rhino horn and the zoo authorities turned a blind eye to this source of revenue exploited by the assistants who worked with the rhino. The head of the zoo at that time was Dr Hymie Ebedes and he had a small supply of rhino horn that he kept locked in a cupboard in his office. Some of the students were offered rhino horn tea and I drank some out of curiosity.
At the time of visiting the zoo as students, we were in our final year of veterinary science. I was doing a fair amount of farrier work (trimming and shoeing horse’s feet) and was a somewhat self-proclaimed expert in foot and hoof care. The rhino in question was lame at that stage and had been walking around on a very sore foot for a few weeks. Dr Ebedes asked me if I was prepared to examine and treat the affected foot. Needless to say I jumped at the opportunity.
Dr Ebedes darted the rhino in its rump with a tranquiliser drug and we all settled down on the outside of the perimeter wall to wait for the drug to take effect. This usually takes about six minutes. The anaesthetic process is, however, preceded by a brief period of excitable activity and a drug called ACP is usually administered together with the tranquiliser to counteract this. Dr Ebedes had given the rhino a shot of ACP but it seemed as though this rhino needed a bigger dose because instead of settling down quietly and going to sleep, he became agitated and for the one minute preceding full anaesthesia, suddenly broke into a stumbling run around the enclosure. We all looked on in horror as the enormous creature started to accelerate. Within the space of a few seconds he was in full charge, galloping at speed towards the other side of his enclosure some fifty metres away. Now, when two tons of rhino collides with an immovable object such as a reinforced solid concrete wall, something has to give. Luckily, the rhino was not able to accelerate to full speed because the enclosure was too small but he was still able to get up a reasonable head of steam. Horn first, he struck the wall a stunning blow. We looked on in shocked disbelief. The rhino literally crumpled up as he hit the wall. The noise of flesh colliding with concrete was a sickening sound. The rhino snorted and squealed as he hit the wall and there was a loud ripping sound as his entire horn was torn off his head at the base of the horn. The rhino had been scalped.
For a few seconds after impact there was complete silence. The rhino lay utterly still alongside his metre-long horn. Then, mesmorised, we turned to watch a zoo staff member suddenly jump over the fence into the rhino enclosure. He was dressed like all other cleaning and keeping staff in blue overalls and, as a result of the speed in which the ensuing action was carried out, it would prove impossible to identify him. He had his wits about him, however. He saw an exquisite opportunity and he literally grabbed it with both hands. He ran like a man possessed and as soon as he got to the rhino, he picked up the horn and threw it to a waiting friend. The friend ran with the horn for a short distance and then threw it to a third person. It was like a relay race. It lasted for less than a minute but in that short space of time the horn must have changed hands about ten times before it vanished completely. We discovered later that it was spirited out of the zoo and was sold for a vast sum of money to the muti shop.
The scene we had just witnessed was so astonishing that it really bears dwelling on for a moment. It unfolded as though it had been rehearsed many times although how it could have been anticipated no one knew. There were about ten participants in the event. Person number one who jumped in and grabbed the horn initiated it. He then ran to the perimeter wall before passing it to person number two. Then, in a series of passes that would have made a national rugby team proud, the horn simply disappeared. And all this in seconds.
We just stood and gaped in stunned amazement before shaking ourselves out of our stupor. Then we too were galvanised into action. We were not focused on racing after the horn, however. We wondered what had happened to the rhino. Was he unconscious or was he dead from the dreadful impact? We could not help but notice that the concrete wall was unscathed.
To our immense relief he was sound asleep.
The rhino had a large, raw wound about thirty centimetres in diameter where the horn used to be but it was a superficial wound and eventually another horn would grow in its place. After all the excitement we almost forgot why we anaesthetised the rhino in the first place but when the situation returned to normal, we were once again able to get down to the business of treating his injured foot.
The rhino was lying on its side and sleeping peacefully. I had my tools for treating hooves with me, and Dr Ebedes and I started to examine all four feet. We had decided to trim and file the nails on each toe of each foot and I set about doing this while Dr Ebedes continued with the examination. He called me over to take a look at the painful foot that was causing the lameness. There was an area about five centimetres in diameter that was discoloured. I took a paring knife and opened it up. I’d only gone a short way before a pocket of pus gushed out of the wound. We had identified the problem – it was an abscess. I dug a little deeper and discovered the cause. A large thorn had burrowed its way into the animal’s foot where it had festered for some time. This must have caused great pain and Dr Ebedes in fact believed that the pain may have been so intense that it cancelled out the sedating effect of the ACP, thus causing the animal to become over-excited and charge the wall. Once the thorn was removed, we flushed the wound out thoroughly and packed it with antiseptic powder. We then injected the rhino with antibiotics and Dr Ebedes gave the antidote to the anaesthetic intravenously.
The rhino woke up and stumbled to its feet. It stood a while and then shook its head. Usually after an anaesthetic is reversed, animals stand up and act almost as though nothing has happened. This rhino, however, stumbled around for a few days after the treatment. We were not sure if this was due to the foot having been worked on or due to the massive collision between its head and the wall. But within a few days he returned to normal – he no longer stumbled and his foot healed perfectly.
This took place in 1984. The rhino lived on at the zoo until 2001 when I learned that he had died at the ripe old age of about thirty-two. His horn did grow back but not to its former glory. The rhino still scraped his horn between the bars and the workers continued to harvest the powder.
Every now and again an infusion of rhino horn tea was offered to a lucky visitor to the zoo. But no one ever came back for a second cup.
