In India, Kaziranga National Park has forbidden anyone from trying to kill its rhinos. But rather than having poachers arrested or fined, the park guards actually shoot the poachers to death as a form of punishment. The guards don’t have to face any punishment for this either because they have impunity. It is estimated that the park guards have shot 50 people to death so far.
In 2015, more poachers were killed at the park than rhinos. The whole idea behind this is to deter people from killing these rhinos since they are one-horned rhinos that are very rare. There are over 2,400 of these rhinos at the park, which is roughly 66% of the total rhino population in the world. Workers at the park are doing everything they can to keep their numbers high. They don’t necessarily set out to kill the poachers, but if they happen to die from their gunshot wounds then so be it.
Poachers go after these rhinos because their horns are worth a lot of money. A horn that weighs 100 grams could be sold for as much as $6,000. This makes a rhino horn worth more than gold. Sometimes the rhino horns are even marketed in a deceptive way where the seller claims that the horn can cure erectile dysfunction or even cancer.
