UP vets’ quest to save our heritage

Abstract

Three rhinos per day are lost to poaching in South Africa. At this rate there will be no more wild rhinos left in the country by 2020. The world should realise this has far surpassed a poaching problem. This is no longer about the person who trespasses to kill an animal so that he can feed his family. This is organised crime and a war we are losing. It seems disturbingly ironic that we are losing an animal we know very little about. Before two veterinarians working in the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Veterinary Science, Drs Gerhard Steenkamp and Johan Marais, started treating rhinos that had survived poaching attacks, very little research had been done on these prehistoric animals.