Fate of Rhinos to Be Topic of S.D. Meeting : Conservation: International conference to deal with touchy issues in saving African and Asian rhinoceroses from extinction.

Zimbabwe is expected to propose at an international meeting in San Diego this week that countries successful at protecting rhinoceroses be allowed to finance their conservation efforts by selling the horns they seize from poachers.

This paradox--using the dead animals’ horns as a way to save the rest--is just one of several vexing issues in rhino conservation that delegates will address.

Even though the three-day conference won’t settle the issue, the opportunity to begin developing a consensus is important, said Oliver Ryder, a geneticist at the San Diego Zoo who has helped organize the meeting. This is the first such international meeting on conservation of all five rhino species.

“I don’t expect this to resolve quickly,” Ryder said. “But I don’t think that this is going to be some sort of critical decision that has to be reached at this time. The discussion will help us define what information needs to be collected to make this kind of decision.”

Beginning today at San Diego’s Hanalei Hotel, the meeting is drawing about 300 scientists and wildlife officials from all over the globe. Among those attending will be representatives of the Asian and African countries where the world’s five species of rhinos--all endangered--live.

It is one of these officials, Rowan Martin of the Zimbabwe Department of National Parks and Wild Life Management, who will put forward the suggestion to partially lift an international ban on the sale of rhinoceros horns.

In addition to horns seized from poachers, some governments also try to protect rhinos by removing the horns from live animals. The horns eventually regrow, but in the meantime the animal has no value to poachers, who can sell horns for up to $20,000 each for use in Asian medicines.

“The black rhino is a species with no legal economic value which is nevertheless very expensive to protect,” Martin wrote in an advance summary of the presentation he will make Friday. “Sustainable utilization of rhino and rhino products offers a promising conservation alternative.”

Zimbabwe’s protection efforts have resulted in a black rhino population there of about 2,000. But it has been reported that the country has a one-ton stockpile of rhino horns as a result of its aggressive anti-poaching efforts.

“Those countries that can conserve should not be punished by those countries that have allowed poachers to destroy their resources,” said E. Masemba, political attache at Zimbabwe’s Embassy in Washington.

Selling rhino horns legally would go far to addressing the economic problem that protecting rhinos presents for Third World countries. Martin estimates that it costs $400 annually to adequately patrol each square kilometer of game preserve.

But Martin’s suggestion is sure to provoke some “vehement controversy” among conservationists who worry that it will ultimately result in the rhinos’ demise, said Thomas J. Foose, executive director of the captive breeding project for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

“The question is: Is the only way to save the rhino going to be through commercial trade in its horn? I don’t have the answer. I don’t know which way to go,” said Doug Inkley, a wildlife lobbyist for the U.S. National Wildlife Federation.

Conservationists have to be careful in their reaction to Zimbabwe’s proposal, said Richard Block, director of public programs for the World Wildlife Fund in the United States.

“It would be difficult to come crashing down on a country that has demonstrated effective management, and better protection of its animals, than other countries,” Block said. “I think that they’re bringing this up for discussion because ultimately it is going to have to be discussed--that is my hope.”

Perhaps less publicly controversial, but equally difficult, will be the conservationists’ attempts at the meeting to agree on the right balance between protecting wild populations and supporting captive breeding.

Foose, for instance, will propose that scientists agree to target their rhino repopulation efforts worldwide in just 35 rhino preserves in 10 countries, each with at least 100 rhinos. That would mean giving up on about 10% of the world’s 8,500 rhinos in the current areas, by moving them elsewhere or into captive breeding.

But neither captive breeding nor moving rhinos is easy. Over the last several years, efforts to save the Sumatran rhino by capturing 29 of them resulted in 9 deaths, Foose said.

Many of the scientific presentations at the San Diego meeting will involve minute details of rhino biology--for instance, how estrogen levels affect reproductivity, how much Vitamin E rhinoceroses need, whether rhinos need to be vaccinated before being moved from one area to another for protection.

“The bottom line is that, if you can preserve the habitat and the species in the wild, you’re much better off than going into a captive breeding program,” Inkley said. “Captive breeding programs are expensive. And it takes a tremendous amount of research, biological expertise and a fair amount of luck to be able to successfully breed these animals in captivity.”

It is crucial, too, not to make those decisions in an environmentalist’s vacuum, Block said.

“If the issue of human need is not addressed, all of this effort will have been for naught,” he said. “You can’t build fences high enough, areas secure enough, you can’t hire enough game wardens to protect those resources. Unless we can help people help themselves in these areas where the animals are threatened, it’s a losing battle.”