The stupidity of bureaucrats continues to amaze.
In the 1970's, the rhinoceros was being hunted to extinction, so African government signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITIES), which makes it a crime to buy or sell Rhino horns. Did that stop the poaching? No. It's worked as well as drug and alcohol prohibition.
This South African newspaper explains how CITES caused a huge spike in prices.
In 1975, when CITES came into effect, the price of rhino horn was $32/kg. Today, it is over $32,000/kg... and the trade in rhino horn is at a 15 year high.
That's what prohibition does. The ban created an underground market for rhinoceros horns. Poachers after inflated profits have killed most of the black rhino population in Africa.
...the population of black rhinos has collapsed. Today's population of less than 2,000 is only 3% of the estimated population during the 1960s.
Want to save endangered species? Legalize their sale! Eat them! Hunt them. Play with them. Let people photograph them. Once animal trade is legal, people have an incentive to protect them and breed them.
The world doesn't ever have a shortage of chickens, cows or pigs. That's because people can make money off them, so they have an incentive to keep enough of them alive so they can breed.
A hundred years ago, American bison were hunted almost to extinction because no one owned them and had the incentive to protect them. Then ranchers began to fence in the bison and farm them. Today, America has half a million bison.
In Zimbabwe, elephants were saved when local tribes were finally allowed to have ownership rights to elephants. Now tribes are willing to protect them from poachers because the tribe makes a profit from animal tourism and even -within limits- hunting.
There is a chance that when it comes to the Rhino, idiot bureaucrats and socialist environmentalists will come to their senses. One newspaper reports that legalization of the horn trade between African and Asian countries is being reconsidered.