JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Researchers in South Africa are using radiation to fight poachers.
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SUMMERS: That's video from the International Atomic Energy Agency that was recorded last week. It captured a team from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg drilling a small hole into the horn of a sedated rhinoceros. After they drill the hole, the team puts a tiny amount of radioactive material inside. Then they seal it up and send the rhino on its way. This is all part of a pretty ambitious scheme to deter poachers from killing the endangered animals for their horns. Here to explain just how this idea is supposed to work is the chief science officer on the Rhisotope Project, Professor James Larkin. Welcome to the program.
JAMES LARKIN: Thank you very much indeed. Thank you for having me.
SUMMERS: So, Professor, if I could, I just want to have you start at the beginning. Tell us how this idea came to be.
LARKIN: Oh, it was a good few years ago now I was asked if it was possible to poison a rhino horn with radioactive material. And I said, theoretically yes, but I'm never going to do it because I'm quite keen not going to prison. But it did then start the sort of cog slowly turning in my mind as to, was there a way that we could use radioactive materials? And working with colleagues around the world, we came to the conclusion that, yes, there was a way that we could actually do this.
SUMMERS: Help us understand. How is turning a rhino's horn radioactive or including the small bit of radioactive material inside, putting it inside their horn, how is that going to help stop poaching?
LARKIN: Two particular ways. One, it devalues the horn in the eyes of the end user 'cause no one really wants anything that might be radioactive. But two, we make it significantly easier to detect a horn as it's moved across international borders, because if someone moves a horn through one of these systems, be it in a suitcase or in a 40-foot container, we're going to be able to detect it. And if we can detect the horn then we disrupt the smuggling routes.
SUMMERS: How are you able to ensure that this is something that's not going to harm the animals?
LARKIN: Well, to start off with, I spent two years doing careful computational modeling. And so we've worked really quite hard. And then all of this work, all of it is under the direct supervision of a veterinary surgeon and the animal ethics committee at my university.
SUMMERS: So how practical is it to scale this idea up? So far, you're talking about a small population of about 30 rhinoceroses, and there are many more than that left in the world. Do you think you'll be able to reach them all?
LARKIN: We don't need to reach them all. We need to reach a statistical number, the percentage which then people will say, well, it's not worth our while to attack a particular farm or a particular region. Once people get to realize that horns from South Africa or southern Africa could or are treated with radiation, they're not going to want it.
SUMMERS: James Larkin, director of Radiation and Health Physics Unit at the University of Witwatersrand and chief science officer of the Rhisotope Project. Thank you so much.
LARKIN: My pleasure. Thank you very much for the interview.
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