JOHANNESBURG - A former businessman who spent his vast fortune on a 30-year quest to save rhinoceroses, running a farm which breeds them, is throwing in the towel.

South African conservationist John Hume, 81, will auction off his rhino farm – the world’s largest – to the highest bidder on April 26. Bids start at US$10 million.

“I’m left with nothing except 2,000 rhinos and 8,000 ha of land,” Mr Hume said in an interview with AFP ahead of the sale.

South Africa is home to nearly 80 per cent of the world’s rhinos, making it a hot spot for poaching driven by demand from Asia, where horns are used in traditional medicine for their supposed therapeutic effect.

The South African government said 448 of the rare animals were killed across the country last year, only three fewer than in 2021 despite increased protection at national parks such as the renowned Kruger.

Poachers have increasingly targeted privately owned reserves in their hunt for horns, which consist mainly of hard keratin, the same substance found in human nails.

They are highly sought after on black markets, where the price per weight rivals that of gold and cocaine at an estimated US$60,000 (S$80,000) per kilogramme.

$200 million spent was ‘worth it’

Mr Hume said that, through the years, he had lavished around US$150 million (S$200.5 million) on his massive philanthropic project to save the world’s second-largest land mammal.

“From a rhino point of view, it was definitely worth it,” the bespectacled octogenarian wearing a chequered shirt said in a Zoom interview.

“There are many more rhinos on Earth than when I started the project.”

Mr Hume, who made his fortune developing tourist resorts, said he fell in love with the animals somewhat by accident. He bought the first specimen after retiring with dreams of running a farm.

“I’ve used all my life savings on that population of rhinos for 30 years. And I finally ran out of money,” he said.

His heavily guarded farm, at an undisclosed location in the North West province, has around 2,000 southern white rhinos – a species that was hunted to near extinction in the late 19th century. Its population gradually recovered, thanks to decades of protection and breeding efforts.

Today, the Red List compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature categorises white rhinos as “near threatened”, with around 18,000 left following a decline in the last decade.

Miles of fences, cameras, heat detectors and an army of rangers patrol the site, which employs about 100 people.

The tight security is meant to dissuade would-be poachers sending the message that “they don’t stand a chance”, said the farm’s head of security Brandon Jones.

Speaking from the control room, however, Mr Jones said the exercise is only partially successful, as poachers will merely kill rhinos somewhere else.

“We are simply diverting them from our reserve. We know that they will target areas where it is easier to penetrate and where the risk-reward ratio is to their advantage,” he said.

Rhino or yacht?

The full extent of the security measures taken and the number of armed rangers on guard are kept secret.

Mr Hume said surveillance is the farm’s biggest cost – and potential buyers will need deep pockets.

“I’m hoping that there is a billionaire that would rather save the population of rhinos from extinction than own a superyacht,” Mr Hume, a gruff outspoken man, said.

“Maybe somebody for whom five million dollars a year is small change.”

The online auction opens on April 26. The farm, with its animals, land and machinery, is on offer.

Adding its 10-tonne stock of rhino horns to the lot is negotiable, said Mr Hume.

The horns were preventively cut off as a way to dissuade poachers from killing the animals – and would be worth more than US$500 million on the black market.

Mr Hume believes they should be sold to fund conservation projects, creating a legal market for them.

“I have the solution. But the rest of the world and the NGOs (non-governmental organisations) don’t agree. And we are losing the war,” laments Mr Hume.

“Unfortunately, on the black market, a rhino horn from a dead rhino is still worth more than a live rhino.” AFP