We can only hope that some kindly Yetis have herded the survivors into some remote jungle valley and they are safe and sound in a Crypto-Shangri La.

In the old USSR, the environment in general was trashed, sometimes on a stunning scale, and whales were caught with no regard for limits or protected species. Hunting preserves reserved for the party elite did help the Siberian tiger (which has fared much worse since the regime fell) and Kamchata’s brown bears (and perhaps its cryptic black one). China, still largely a political dictatorship, has likewise been very bad for the environment in many cases but has showcased massive efforts, including executing poachers, to protect the panda.

Any time ideological clashes escalate to armed conflict, it’s usually a very bad thing for animals, as law enforcement or forestry personnel are driven out and weapons from land mines to artillery barrages to defoliants are used without consideration of the effects on wildlife. Conservation gets shoved aside in war, whether it’s Vietcong roasting a kouprey or the US logging out the Singer Tract. There are flukes where this works in the other direction: some writers think the “extinct” Japanese wolf made a comeback when WWII drained the provinces of hunters and farmers.

I think a case can be made that conservation in general has done better under democratic governments, at least in the past century. Still, no nation has a spotless record.

To bring this back to the Nepali rhinos, it’s quite possible they were killed by the Maoists, eaten for sustenance while their horns were sold to finance further operations. There is probably an entire book to be written about how conflict affects conservation and how, in some cases, very brave people have managed to save animals or habitat from destruction.

The Maoists (for whom I admittedly have no love — Mao is one of my most detested all-time fascists, along with Ann Coulter)have no direct link to the poaching. They threatened security posts that had a link to rhino conservation, but the information we have doesn’t suggest that the Maoists targeted the rhinos directly. The fighting in Nepal has nothing to do with a natural resource — unlike the Iraq war.

By that same token, the vanishing rhinos have nothing to do with ideology. Let’s not forget that Nepal is still technically a monarchy in transition to becoming a parliamentary democracy like Canada and most of the commonwealth nations.

What joppa fails to comprehend are the socioeconomic realities that turn individuals into poachers. They are individuals struggling to feed starving families, or individuals struggling to pay their hashish supplier. Their harsh socioeconomic realities drive them to desperate action to meet whatever realities they find themselves facing. By no means am I advocating their actions, however, it is ridiculous to suggest that ideology is the root of poaching (unless we’re talking about oil poachers).

It is amazing that the conservation of natural resources and wildlife has developed from capitalist societies; we conserve and protect because we can finally “afford” to. Panda conservation in China was started because the West paid for it.

I am afraid that if the Maoists got anywhere near those rhinos (and what beautiful creatures Indian rhino are) they will never be found. Sad.