"Trophy"

When I was six years old my mom took me to a bookstore after school and let me pick out a book to buy. The first book I immediately gravitated towards was a big purple book titled: “The Animal Encyclopedia.” The book was so much bigger than me I could barely pick it up off the shelf but I was so enamored by the pictures of the tiger and elephant on the front I knew it was the book I had to get. Since then, I have always had a passion for animals. I have moved on from that children’s encyclopedia to programs on Animal Planet, National Geographic, as well as the well-known Netflix series’ “Our Planet” and “Planet Earth.” However, I also have enjoyed watching lesser-known documentaries about more specific issues in the animal conservation world. One of my favorites is called “Trophy” and is now available on Amazon Prime. This documentary follows multiple stories lines centering around conservation in Africa, specifically with the elusive Rhinoceros as well as canned hunting.

While many interesting topics were covered in the “Trophy” documentary, one topic that stood out to me in particular was the hunting of the elusive rhino horn. The documentary explains how poachers kill the entire rhino just to get a piece of the horn that is “priced at $65,000 per kilogram on the black market.” One of the storylines centers around a man named John Hume who owns a large piece of protected land where he keeps poachers away from his rhinos. In “Trophy” Hume explains that “rhino horn is more expensive than gold or heroin by weight.” On his property Hume has a team of veterinarians who help him safely dose the rhinos with anesthesia and then carefully remove the unnecessary rhino horn so that poachers don’t go after the rhino. Hume explains that the procedure is painless and that the horn grows back rather quickly. Because of this Hume has “around $16 million worth of rhino horn” stored away on his property. But, because the buying and selling of rhino horn is illegal, Hume has made no money from it and is in fact struggling to manage his property and keep his protection efforts afloat. Hume’s storyline in the documentary centers around his efforts to change the law regarding selling rhino horn so that he can legally sell it and continue protecting the rhinos on his land.

Conservation is not black or white, right or wrong, it’s a complete grey area where you can find many different arguments and opinions. Hume’s opinion on changing the legality of the rhino horn is controversial as many people believe that the legalization of rhino horn would just encourage more poaching. However, Hume’s logic and explanations make sense and I believe that there must be some sort of alternative because even though poaching rhino’s is illegal, it still happens every day and people like John Hume should be able to continue their efforts to protect this beautiful creature.