Scientists in South Africa are making rhino horns radioactive to struggle poaching : NPR

A sedated rhino is being ready earlier than a gap is drilled into its horn and isotopes fastidiously inserted, at a rhino orphanage in Mokopane, South Africa, Thursday, July 31, 2025.

Alfonso Nqunjana/AP

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Alfonso Nqunjana/AP

MOKOPANE, South Africa (AP) — A South African college launched an anti-poaching marketing campaign Thursday to inject the horns of rhinos with radioactive isotopes that it says are innocent for the animals however might be detected by customs brokers.

Under the collaborative undertaking involving the University of the Witwatersrand, nuclear vitality officers and conservationists, 5 rhinos have been injected in what the college hopes would be the begin of a mass injection of the declining rhino inhabitants.

They’re calling it the Rhisotope Project.

Professor James Larkin drills a gap right into a rhino’s horn to inject radioactive isotopes, at a rhino orphanage in Mokopane, South Africa, Thursday, July 31, 2025.

Alfonso Nqunjana/AP

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Alfonso Nqunjana/AP

Last 12 months, about 20 rhinos at a sanctuary have been injected with isotopes in trials that paved the best way for Thursday’s launch. The radioactive isotopes even at low ranges might be acknowledged by radiation detectors at airports and borders, resulting in the arrest of poachers and traffickers.

Researchers at Witwatersrand’s Radiation and Health Physics Unit say that exams carried out within the pilot examine confirmed that the radioactive materials was not dangerous to the rhinos.

“We have demonstrated, beyond scientific doubt, that the process is completely safe for the animal and effective in making the horn detectable through international customs nuclear security systems,” mentioned James Larkin, chief scientific officer on the Rhisotope Project.

“Even a single horn with significantly lower levels of radioactivity than what will be used in practice successfully triggered alarms in radiation detectors,” mentioned Larkin.

The exams additionally discovered that horns could possibly be detected inside full 40-foot transport containers, he mentioned.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that the worldwide rhino inhabitants stood at round 500,000 in the beginning of the twentieth century however has now declined to round 27,000 because of continued demand for rhino horns on the black market.

South Africa has the most important inhabitants of rhinos with an estimated 16,000 however the nation experiences excessive ranges of poaching with about 500 rhinos killed for his or her horns yearly.

The college has urged personal wildlife park homeowners and nationwide conservation authorities to have their rhinos injected.