Crochet a rhino

Heidi Bears (she of the brilliant African Flower Tutorial fame) has come up with a beautiful rhino design, in African Flowers.

Image: http://heidibearscreative.blogspot.com

Find the pattern on Ravely and help in the fight to keep our rhinos safe - $1 of each and every sale goes toward the Kariega Foundation.

You might not know that the plight of rhinos in South Africa is bleak, to say the least.  They are slaughtered on an almost daily basis for their horns; 688 up to 22 September this year.  

The horns are dried and ground  and used as "aphrodisiac" or "medicinal reasons", particularly in Vietnam.  Our government has been in talk with the Vietnamese government about this, but in the meantime poaching and butchering continues.

This one month-old calf was found screaming next to the body of her mother, after she was hacked to death for her horn. Easter weekend 2012, Alma, Limpopo.
Image: www.beeld.com

Poachers are brutal, they are armed with AK 47's  and highly organised.  They don't care who and what they kill in the process, have no respect for game reserves, with the majority of those poached in Kruger National Park. 

Rhinos are magnificent, beautiful giants.  They don't deserve this, and will be extinct sooner than we think, if poaching should continue.