matt_pembient

We would like to be identical to wild horn. On our way to that goal, we would like to make it more and more expensive to tell the difference between us and wild horn. At some point, someone might have to pay more money than the product is worth to detect any differences, and that's a great place to be.

In order for wild horns to be prized more, there needs to be a way to tell they're actually from the wild. Scientifically, we can become indistinguishable. Since there is no legal market for wild horn, and no government authority for certifying wild horn as real, it is not clear how real horn will be identified and awarded a premium in the market.

Well, there is a top down approach where we sell into the market as an alternative to rhino horn. In this way, we're like a better and more humane water buffalo horn (the official substitute to rhino horn). There is also a bottom up approach, which you mention, whereby we sell, grant, or loan horns to communities around wildlife areas and they resell those objects.

One nice thing is that we're competing against poaching syndicates, and these syndicates cannot really offer any legal proof of authenticity. So, as long as our products look the same on the molecular, microscopic, and macroscopic levels, it should be very difficult and expensive for anyone to differentiate between us and wild horn.

A rhino's horns weigh about 11 pounds and can be quickly removed from the animal. A rhino's head is about 500 pounds and any operation to remove and transport it would not be so simple. Poachers don't want to spend hours at a crime scene.

That's a new one.

To quote a TRAFFIC study:

"Rhino horn has not been well researched in comparison with other ingredients in traditional medicine. Only one study was found testing rhino horn for pharmacological effect in humans using the best-practice method of a randomized double-blind trial. That study found a short-lived significant effect on fever in children, but did not recommend its use as acetaminophen (a common nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) performed better."

In the West, the campaign denouncing rhino horn as not being a medicine has been pretty successful. Elsewhere, that message is not as readily received. Furthermore, keratin is used in a lot of beauty and skin treatments in the West, so clearly Westerners find keratin, one of the primary constituents of rhino horn, of great value.

We would like to move away from questions of usefulness and instead focus on the dangers and health concerns of obtaining rhino horn through illegal channels.