Horn of Darkness

Rhinos on the Edge

Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger

Exciting, fast-paced, and very personal story makes for great reading
Conclusions are disturbing in light of the problem--and the question remains unsolved, how do we put a stop to human greed? Lots of chewing for review fodder.
The American appetite for stories about extinct--or soon to be extinct--animals is seemingly unending. This is a great entry into that line of storytelling, with adventure, human interest, and political intrigue thrown in for good measure

Horn of Darkness

Rhinos on the Edge

Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger

Description

The black rhino is nature's tank, feared by all animals. Even lions will break off a hunt to detour around one. And yet the black rhino is on the edge of extinction, its numbers dwindling from 100,000 at the turn of the century, to less than 2,500 today. The reason is that in places like Yemen, China, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, the rhino's horn is more valuable than gold, so valuable that people will risk their lives to harvest it. To deter rhino poachers, African governments have spent millions--on helicopters, paramilitary operations, fences and guard dogs, even relocation to protected areas. Finally, Namibia decided to dehorn its rhino population, in a last ditch effort to stop the slaughter. In 1991, Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger, and their eighteen-month-old daughter Sonja, went to Namibia to weigh the effects of dehorning on rhinos. In Horn of Darkness, they tell the story of three years in the Namib Desert, studying Africa's last sizable population of free-roaming black rhinos.
This is the closest most readers will come to experiencing life in the remaining wilds of Africa. Cunningham and Berger, writing alternate chapters, capture what it is like to leave the comforts of civilization, to camp for months at a time in a land filled with deadly predators, to study an animal that is reclusive, unpredictable, and highly dangerous. The authors describe staking out water holes in the dead of the night, creeping to within twenty-seven meters of rhinos to photograph them, all the while keeping a lookout for hyenas, elephants, and lions. They recount many heart-pounding escapes--one rhino forces Carol Cunningham up a tree, an unseen lion in hot pursuit of hyenas races right past a frozen Joel Berger--and capture the adrenaline rush of inching closer to a rhino that might flee--or charge--at any moment. They also give readers a clear sense of the careful, patient work involved in studying animals, the frustration of long days without finding rhinos or seeing other people, coping with heat and thirst (the Namib desert is one of the driest on Earth), with dirt and insects, driving hundreds of kilometers in a Land Rover packed to capacity, slowing amassing records on one hundred individual rhinos over the course of several years. And perhaps most important, the authors reveal that the data they collected suggests that the dehorning project might backfire--that in the four years after dehorning began, calf survival was down (the evidence suggests that hyenas might be preying on calves and the hornless mothers couldn't defend their offspring). They also describe the dark side of scientific work, from the petty jealousy of other scientists--outside researchers were often seen as ecological imperialists--to the controversy that erupted after the authors published their findings, as furious officials of the Namibian conservation program denounced their findings and through delays and other tactics effectively withheld a permit to allow the couple to continue their study.
Weaving together the historical accounts of other naturalists, a vividly detailed look at life in the wild, and a behind-the-scenes glimpse of scientific work and the dark side of the conservation movement, Horn of Darkness is destined to be a classic work on the natural world.

Horn of Darkness

Rhinos on the Edge

Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger

A Black Rhino Time Line
Map
I. YEAR OF THE MOPANE FLY [1991]
1. In the Rhino's Path
2. Bumbling around in the Bush
3. Trial by Fire
4. Etosha
5. Dark Nights and Moonlight
6. Mom
7. The Unforgiving Desert
8. A Tracker Appears
9. It Depends on Your Perspective
10. Through the Eyes of a Poacher
11. "The Missus"
II. YEAR OF THE TSONGOLOLO [1992]
12. A Caprivi Crossing
13. Rhino Illusions
14. Namib Edge
15. Buried in Sand
16. Lions and Hyenas
17. The Dead and the Brave
18. Concrete Corridors
19. Of Science and Ecology
III. YEAR OF THE SCORPION [1993]
20. The Europa Hof
21. Trails of Dust
22. Of Moths and Maggots
23. The Zimbabwe Massacre
24. Missing Calves
25. The Witch Doctor's Revenge
26. The Pelvis and the Lion
27. Horn Traders
IV. YEAR OF THE HUMAN [1994]
28. Rhino Rhetoric
29. Xenophobia
Epilogue
Postscript
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Index

Horn of Darkness

Rhinos on the Edge

Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger

Author Information

Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger have worked as a team for fifteen years studying conservation and wildlife issues from Africa and Alaska to the Great Basin Desert. They both work at the University of Nevada, in Reno, and live up in the Sierras.

Horn of Darkness

Rhinos on the Edge

Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger

Reviews and Awards

"More than a nature study or adventure story, Horn of Darkness is a melange of politics, economics, hope, despair, and intestinal fortitude. It's a great read, because it's real."--Dr. Andy Phillips, Deputy Director, Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species, Zoological Society of San Diego

"Few would have had the courage to take their families into the harsh and lonely landscape of the Namib; even fewer would have returned with so much for science, humanity and the wildlife they studied.... This book is a must read for anyone seeking insight into the lives of those who struggle to conserve endangered species and those who want to know more about the desperate plight of the black rhinoceros."--Mark Dykes, Administrative Director, Owens Foundation for Wildlife Conservation

"In alternating chapters, the two authors plait their days afield into a delightful memoir: how they learned to track, to dodge rhino charges, to overcome all the logistical problems of cameras and auto mechanics and night-vision and life without a tossed salad."--Kirkus Reviews

"Horn of Darkness, a fast-moving adventure about field studies in the Namib desert, is also an object lesson about the politics of conservation. When the Namibian government began to de-horn black rhinos in the early 1990s as a deterrent to poachers, Berger and Cunningham were welcomed as guest scientists to examine the biological consequences. Their gypsy-like quest for data contains humor, understanding, and the insight that the human dimension, rather than biology, poses the greatest challenges to wildlife conservation." --Chris Wemmer, Smithsonian Institution

"These remarkable authors, Carol Cunningham and Joel Berger, show that the process of Science is subject to the distortions of political agendas, of whimsical authority. Yet their trials are described with sensitivity, emotion, humor and a deeply felt commitment to the future of humankind and their fellow species and environments." --A.R.E. Sinclair, Professor of Ecology and Director, Centre for Biodiversity Research

"A compelling tale of how scientists work under physically and politically challenging conditions in an attempt to determine if radical management can help conserve one of the world's most critically endangered mammals in one of the world's wildest places. The reader is treated to a blend of science with a unique personal perspective into the family life of field biologists."--Steven R. Beissinger, Division of Ecosystem Sciences, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley

"The two authors...and their young daughter still in nappies, spent 3 seasons in Namibia dehorning rhino and researching the wildlife biology of this species. The book is a narrative of their time in Namibia. It reads like a novel, starting with their first tentative steps in the country and following their scientific and social interaction with the people of the country. Through their writing you can feel the heat and sweat, the exhilaration of the work and their reaction to feeling like unwanted invaders of privacy when meeting with remote tribes people. When their fourth session of work is stopped before it really starts because of politics, the reader gets an object lesson about the politics of conservation. This book is every bit as good as 'Out of Africa' but with a lot more good ecology in it." -- Bulletin of the British Ecological Society