He said legalizing the rhino horn trade would reduce the price and incentive for poaching. DNA testing could be used to assure that only legal rhino horns are sold. And taxes and fees from the sale of legal rhino horns could be used to fund increased security and conservation measures.

The South African government has commissioned a study on legalizing the rhino trade, but Jo Shaw with the wildlife trade monitoring organization TRAFFIC remains skeptical.

“We need to know exactly how horn is going to be sold. We need to know who it is going to be sold to. We need to be clear on the mechanisms that will be put into place to stop horns from illegally killed rhinos entering the legal trade.”

She said despite the increase in rhino poaching, the ban is working in that the worldwide rhino population remains steady at about 20,000 animals. And while demand for rhino horns currently is rising in China, Vietnam and Thailand, other countries in Asia have been successful in curbing the illegal trade.

“We do know that, in the past, markets for rhino horns have grown and then been reduced elsewhere. So historically Japan, Taiwan, Korea were all major users of rhino horn. Those countries all have domestic bans in place and the demand is no longer coming from those regions,” said Shaw.

She said that if legalizing the rhino trade to save the rhinos may sound too good to be true, it most likely is.