Horn of Darkness

Rhinos on the Edge

Carol Cunningham, Joel Berger (Autoren)

Buch | Softcover

272 Seiten

2000
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-513880-1 (ISBN)

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The story of a three year study in the Namib desert of Africa's last sizeable population of free-roaming black rhinos and assessing the hope for their survival. A mix of western science and local interests, political and economic influences, and personal commitment.

The world's rhinoceroses face extinction because a part of their anatomy is valued too much. Poachers hunt and slaughter them because their horns are treasured. Once an estimated 100,000 black rhinos roamed from the Sahara to the Cape of Good Hope but onw less than 3% remain. In all of Africa, there is but a single unfenced population numbering more than 100 individuals, in the inhospitable barrens of the Namib Desert. In 1989 a radical strategy was developed - cutting the horns. The rationale is simple. If a rhino has no horns, the incentive to kill it should disappear. What has since unfolded is a biological and political drama. Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger describe their quest to help conserve Africa's black rhinos in a book that is both an adventure story and virtual guidebook to the challenges and experience of field biology. The authors present such a multifaceted and rich account of the complicated mix of scientific, political, economic, social, and moral concerns affecting any effort to preserve an endangered species. It moves beyond the typical nature study by bringing in real world components of conservation - the delicate mix of western science, politics and economics, and personal despair and hope.

Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger have worked as a team for fifteen years studying conservation and wildlife issues from Africa and Alaska to the Great Basin Desert. They both work at the University of Nevada, in Reno, and live up in the Sierras.

A Black Rhino Time Line
Map
I. YEAR OF THE MOPANE FLY [1991]
1: In the Rhino's Path
2: Bumbling around in the Bush
3: Trial by Fire
4: Etosha
5: Dark Nights and Moonlight
6: Mom
7: The Unforgiving Desert
8: A Tracker Appears
9: It Depends on Your Perspective
10: Through the Eyes of a Poacher
11: "The Missus"
II. YEAR OF THE TSONGOLOLO [1992]
12: A Caprivi Crossing
13: Rhino Illusions
14: Namib Edge
15: Buried in Sand
16: Lions and Hyenas
17: The Dead and the Brave
18: Concrete Corridors
19: Of Science and Ecology
III. YEAR OF THE SCORPION [1993]
20: The Europa Hof
21: Trails of Dust
22: Of Moths and Maggots
23: The Zimbabwe Massacre
24: Missing Calves
25: The Witch Doctor's Revenge
26: The Pelvis and the Lion
27: Horn Traders
IV. YEAR OF THE HUMAN [1994]
28: Rhino Rhetoric
29: Xenophobia
Epilogue
Postscript
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	30.3.2000
Zusatzinfo	16 pp halftone plates, 1 map
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	114 x 76 mm
Gewicht	431 g
Themenwelt	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
Themenwelt	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Zoologie
ISBN-10	0-19-513880-5 / 0195138805
ISBN-13	978-0-19-513880-1 / 9780195138801
Zustand	Neuware