The year has not started well for South Africa's rhinos. Five of the animals have already been killed since New Year's Day, and if the recent past is any indication, many more victims will follow.

Overall, it has been an atrocious few years for South Africa's rhinos. Poachers in the country continue to illegally slaughter an alarming number of the animals. Last year alone, 333 rhinos were murdered in South Africa, including 10 critically endangered black rhinos.

That total is the highest ever recorded in the country and is almost three times the previous year's death toll of 122.

At the end of the 19^th century, the white rhino population stood at less than 200. Thanks to strong conservation efforts, the rhino population now exceeds 20,000. So why are these majestic animals being killed? A belief among some people that rhino horns can cure cancer is fueling demand for the horns in Asia (particularly in Vietnam).

You can help. Please step up and speak out against the slaughter of African rhinos.

This rhino survived 35 hours after being shot twice and having her horn sawed off. chris.corwin/CC by 2.0

Written by Joseph Mayton

Jerzy Strzelecki / CC by 3.0

Elle Macpherson has told the Times online that she uses rhino horn to try to stop the aging process. Quackery aside, this has huge consequences for animals—and it's illegal. Here's the letter that PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk sent Macpherson today:

What was Elle's response to the outcry about her comment? Click here to find out.

July 6, 2010

Dear Ms. Macpherson,

We've read that you have confessed to a reporter for the Times online that you use an illegal substance: rhino horn. Considering that there is nothing beautiful about the slaughter of wildlife, will you please give up your use of rhino horn and tell the world why you did?

Like shark's fin, which is hacked off the shark, who is then thrown back into the water to spin helplessly to the bottom of the sea, rhino horn is hacked off, too, and the rhino is left to die with a machete hole in the face. It is not a quick death, as photographs and video footage attest.

Rhinos are interesting animals, not that it would matter if they were boring as hell. It isn't too long ago that human beings discovered what this species knew all along: that its members communicate by means of complex breathing noises. In my book The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights, I recount how Anna Mertz, the founder of a rhino sanctuary in Kenya, came to realize that these animals live in a completely different sphere from ours. They are the Mr. Magoos of the animal kingdom, barely able to see a thing, which unfortunately makes it convenient to poach them, and their world is dominated by their senses of smell and hearing.

To communicate, rhinos use a highly complicated method of regulating their breathing, a sort of Morse code, to talk to one another. Mertz says that rhinos are absolutely terrified of humans because people chase them, separate them from their calves, and slaughter them for their horns, which are cut off for use as aphrodisiacs and in cosmetics.

Mertz raised and released an orphaned bull she named Makara who had never witnessed an attack by hunters and had never learned to fear people. Over time, he came to regard Mertz as a friend.

On one occasion, Mertz was out with a tracker when the two of them saw a rhino moving very slowly toward them, looking very odd. When he got close, they saw that it was Makara and that he was completely entangled in barbed wire. Barbed wire is terrifying to animals, and most panic when they encounter it, but Makara had recognized the sound of his friend's Jeep engine and come for help. Although trembling all over, he gave the pair the greeting breathing. Mertz managed to get a handkerchief between Makara's eye and the jagged wire that was cutting into it, then took off her jacket and worked it under the wire that was cutting into his thigh. Without wire cutters, the tracker used a cutlass and a flat stone to cut the wire while Mertz, talking gently to the bull, disentangled him. The whole affair took about 40 minutes, and the whole time Makara stood stock-still except for the tremors that shook his body.

When the last of the wire fell away, he breathed goodbye and moved slowly back into the bush. Mertz says she knew that they had witnessed an act of outstanding intelligence, trust, and courage. That this bull had come to them for help and had exercised such control over his state of panic, standing still and allowing himself to be freed of the frightening barbed wire, must have been very difficult and painful to him—even more so, given the fact that although Makara knew Mertz's voice well, she had never before attempted to touch him.

I wrote in the book that perhaps if we could sit rhino hunters down and let them see that a rhino is not an inconsequential gray lump, not a trophy or a heap of body parts, but a living, thinking, feeling being—a son, a mother, a friend to others, a vulnerable individual—perhaps they would not blow these magnificent animals to kingdom come or cut off their horns via machete. Perhaps you might also sit down and look at the photos of the rhinos who are ground up for human vanity and complete quackery.

Jackie Chan, who works hard to combat the devastation to wildlife caused by Chinese medicine, from tiger penises to bear bile and claws, is appalled by this vile trade and has helped many groups, including PETA, work to combat such cruelty. He says, if you know anyone who is buying the stuff, "Ask them to think first. Do they really want to be responsible for the cruel killing of an individual animal and to contribute to the extinction of the species? Don't they know that there are herbal alternatives to endangered animals in traditional Chinese medicine? And do they really need that endangered species product? There is no excuse."

Elle, you are a role model in many ways, and I hope you will agree that wildlife should be left in peace. Will you please condemn the trade in rhino horn and other substances that are stolen from wild animals? I look forward to hearing back from you.

Very truly yours,

Ingrid E. Newkirk
President
PETA