Anti-poaching ranger Katie Marx
Present, an anti-poaching ranger, works at the Zululand Rhino Orphanage in South Africa. He is tasked with the dangerous job of protecting the four orphaned rhinos who currently live there from poachers. The poaching crisis in South Africa means that every day baby rhinos are being orphaned as their mothers fall victim to poaching. Rhino horn is a sought-after commodity across much of Asia, where it is used as a status symbol and in traditional medicine, despite being proven to have no medicinal benefits. Our team of researchers from the Exeter
Anthrozoology as Symbiotic Ethics (EASE) working group, with funding from National Geographic, are researching ways of engaging millennials with the plight of rhinos. The knowledge, attitudes and practices of these millennials in relation to rhino poaching and horn consumption will be assessed before and after exposure to a series of short films featuring imagery and narratives obtained by the project team during fieldwork in South Africa.