News Animals

Preemptively cutting rhinos’ horns cuts poaching

The strategy abruptly reduces poaching rates by about 78 percent

image of a baby rhino and mom with horn removed

This mother rhino, walking with her calf, has had her horn removed proactively, a tactic that can reduce poaching rates.

Tim Kuiper

By Jake Buehler

Rhino poaching may be substantially reduced by removing the reason so many rhinos are poached in the first place: their highly valued horns.

Dehorning rhinos dramatically drops the poaching rate compared with other tactics, researchers report June 5 in Science.