Radioactive Rhinos
South Africa's rhinos now have an unlikely superpower- radioactivity! Scientists working on the Rhisotope Project, have injected the horns of live rhinos with a radioactive isotope, which is harmless to the rhinos, but makes smuggled horns easy to detect during customs inspections, deterring rhinoceros poaching.
Green Humour for Mongabay.
This is brilliat work. The juxtaposition of making the horns radioactive while keeping the rhinos safe is pretty counterintuitive at frst glance, but it's a genius deterrent when you think about it. I remeber when wildlife trafficking seemed impossible to track because horns look identical once they're processed, but this isotope approach essentially brands them without damage. Hopefully customs infrastrucutre catches up fast enough to make this more than just a regional solution.
Haha! We have to find a way to corrupt nature to make it last.