Asians consume charismatic mammal products often obtained from non-Asian sources. Unprecedented wildlife trafficking threatens biodiversity. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.įunding: This work was supported by the World Wildlife Fund, South Africa, Grant ZA2321 awarded to SF and TH ( The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Received: JAccepted: NovemPublished: November 21, 2016Ĭopyright: © 2016 Haas, Ferreira. PLoS ONE 11(11):Įditor: Antoni Margalida, University of Lleida, SPAIN This approach to the evaluation of wildlife management policies may be useful to apply to other species threatened by wildlife trafficking.Ĭitation: Haas TC, Ferreira SM (2016) Combating Rhino Horn Trafficking: The Need to Disrupt Criminal Networks. This multi-faceted approach should be the focus of the international debate on strategies to combat the current slaughter of rhino rather than the binary debate about whether rhino horn trade should be legalized. This policy includes both a transnational policing effort aimed at dismantling those criminal networks engaged in rhino horn trafficking-coupled with increases in legal economic opportunities for people living next to protected areas where rhinos live. Simulation runs of our model over the next 35 years produces a sustainable rhino population under only one management policy. We evaluate policies that consist of different combinations of legal trade initiatives, demand reduction marketing campaigns, increased anti-poaching measures within protected areas, and transnational policing initiatives aimed at disrupting those criminal syndicates engaged in horn trafficking. A data-validated, individual-based sub-model of the rhino population of South Africa provides these abundance values. In our model, an agent-based sub-model of horn trade from the poaching event up through a purchase of rhino horn in Asia impacts rhino abundance. We build a model that integrates rhino horn trade with rhino population dynamics in order to evaluate the impact of various management policies on rhino sustainability. The onslaught on the World’s wildlife continues despite numerous initiatives aimed at curbing it.
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