Irish link to a bloody and brutal trade

ACCORDING to Andrew Hamilton and Emer Connolly, of the Clare People, customs officials at Shannon Airport found a pair of rhino horns on Christmas Eve.

Eight more horns have been confiscated since then. Ireland has signed the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), under which rhinos are listed. It’s an offence to import their body parts without a licence. Nobody has been charged in Shannon, but, presumably, “investigations are continuing”. The horns were sent to Dublin Zoo for analysis.

Unicorns were horses with marlin spikes projecting from their foreheads. Rhinos and horses come from the same evolutionary stable. With the ass zebra and tapir, they belong to the odd-toed line of hoofed animals. Cattle, sheep and deer, which descend from the even-toed line, seem to be faring better than their odd-toed cousins. Perhaps their technology is more advanced; cattle have better digestive systems than horses.