Rhinos in South Africa now have radioactive horns.
No, this isn’t the origin story of a Spider-Man villain, it’s an effort to curb rhino poaching.
As The Associated Press reports, the initiative, dubbed the Rhisotope Project, involves injecting rhino horns with radioactive isotopes. Scientists say that this method does not harm the rhino, but allows its horn to be traceable by radiation detectors.
“We have demonstrated, beyond scientific doubt, that the process is completely safe for the animal and effective in making the horn detectable through international customs nuclear security systems,” says the Rhisotope Project’s James Larkin. “Even a single horn with significantly lower levels of radioactivity than what will be used in practice successfully triggered alarms in radiation detectors.”
So far, five rhinos have gotten the radioactive horn injection, and the project hopes to expand it through the South Africa rhino population.
While it’s good to know that the radioactive material won’t harm any rhinos, we think that people might be OK if it harmed the poachers a little.