Gambling On Extinction

Filmmaker Jakob Kneser's clear-eyed documentary looks at the shocking truth about the illegal trade in poaching wild elephants and rhinos in Africa. The speed at which these animals are in decline is alarming: in just a century, the number of elephants on the entire continent has dropped from 10 million to less than 500,000. At a rate of 33,000 elephants being poached each year, it's obvious that there will be none left in the very near future. The same holds true for rhinos. What drives this extreme $20 billion black market slaughtering business? The answer is an international demand for ivory from elephant tusks and a ridiculous belief that rhino horns have magically medicinal properties. The film features nauseating sights of elephant and rhino carcasses hacked to pieces, while offering evidence of the difference between the way professional poachers go about their grisly work versus the clumsier, more tortuous methods of local amateurs. The camera also follows the investigations of anti-poaching cops in Kenya who always seem to be several steps behind the criminals, and it journeys to Vietnam and China, where the possession of rhino horns is both a status symbol and an expensive snake oil thought to cure ailments. While some solutions are suggested, the real answer still seems a long way off. Sounding a deeply disturbing alarm about the potential extinction of some of the most majestic creatures on Earth, this is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)