Urban Rhino (spirit drinks to help endangered rhinos)
Urban Rhino uses profits to help save critically endangered white rhinos. The founder’s friend had decided to build the world’s first rhino orphanage (the first orphan arriving even before it was built).
Due to quinine, avoid tonic water for certain medical conditions (liver failure, blood thinners, antibiotics and anti-depressants). Also check medication inserts, before consuming grapefruit or rhubarb drinks.
Unless chopped up, corks are too dense to compost (and choking hazards, if left around). So recycle them at your local off license, or send off in bulk to Recorked.
The range includes:
- London Dry Gin
- African Spiced Rum
- Dragon & Lime Liqueur
- Chocolate & Tonka Bean Rum
So each sip ensures you are helping babies who have lost their rhino parents to find safety from poachers. Distilled in Henley, this gin contains six botanicals (juniper. lemon peel, coriander seed, orris root, cassia bark and liquorice root).
Tips to Help Save Endangered Rhinos
Rhinos are one of the world’s most endangered species, all 5 species at risk of extinction due to loss of habitat and poaching (horns are made from keratin and the protein could make illness worse, despite some believing it has medical powers). One expert says using horn to cure cancer, is like ‘chewing your own toenails’.
In fact, some boffins are flooding the market with ‘fake horns’ made from donated toenails, as the DNA is identical, to stop idiots paying thousands for horn, made from murdered rhinos.
The last male northern white rhino has died, so unless interbred with other species, it will go extinct.
These gentle herbivores can reach over 500 stone, and like elephants, have poor vision, so rely on smell to get around. Related to horses and tapirs, there are 5 species of rhinoceros:
- Black rhinos (less than 6,500 ) are African. They have pointed hooked lips, for grazing.
- White rhinos (16,000) are African. They have square lips, to eat grass.
- Javan rhinos (less than 70) are Asian. They have skin that looks like ‘plated armour’.
- Sumatran rhinos (less than 40-50) are Asian. They have two horns, with shaggy ear-air.
- Greater One-Horned Rhinos (around 4000) are Asian
Oxpecker birds love to hitch rides on the backs of rhinos, to eat insects and ticks. So the rhinos are happy to have them travel along. They can also sense danger by movements of the bird, as rhinos don’t see well.
‘Askari wa kifaru’ is the Swahili name for oxpecker birds. It means ‘the rhino’s guard’.
Yorkshire ‘knitting nanas’ to help Rhinos!
In Yorkshire, a care home of ‘knitting nanas’ recently sent a homemade blanket to Hercules the baby rhino, expected to make a full recovery after a hyena attack.
One of the knitters said ”Seeing Hercules in one of our blankets has made my day. He’s such a cute little fellow’.
Support Anti-Poaching Gangs
As well as preserving habitats, the best way to protect rhinos is to support sanctuaries that train anti-poaching gangs (some are shot dead, but the gangs also have the right to shoot poachers). IFAW is at the forefront of preventing rhino poaching and helping sanctuaries.
This is because some poachers tranquillise rhinos from aeroplanes, fly down to remove the horns, then make a quick getaway. Removing horns will not work, as most poachers don’t know the horns have been removed until after death, and rhinos need their horns to forage.
One amazing idea from an Irish scientist is to attach heart monitors to rhinos. Then if the rhino starts running fast (to escape a poacher), it sends an audible alert to anti-poaching gangs. They immediately go on site. And no poacher can out-run a helicopter.
In South Africa (which has the world’s highest population of rhinos), a new idea is planting (harmless) radioactive isotopes in rhino horns. So they are not just easily traceable, but makes them unattractive to poachers, as they are then worthless.
Please Don’t Visit Rhinos in Zoos
It may seem like you can ‘keep rhinos safe’ (you can’t, one was recently killed in a zoo break-in for its horn). But there are professional anti-poaching gangs abroad, who can not just protect rhinos, but let them live natural lives in protected parks, rather than be bored in cages.
You can submit reports of concerns here or abroad to Born Free (and tell the local police, tourism operator and animal welfare organisations).
