Sci/Tech Biotech firm creates fake rhino horn to reduce poaching

A San Francisco biotech startup has managed to 3D print fake rhino horns that carry the same genetic fingerprint as the actual horn. It plans to flood Chinese market with these cheap horns to curb poaching.

Pembient, based in San Francisco uses keratin — a type of fibrous protein — and rhino DNA to produce a dried powder which is then 3D printed to synthetic rhino horns that is genetically and spectrographically similar to original rhino horns.The company plans to release a beer brewed with the synthetic horn later this year in the Chinese market.

The Chinese and Vietnamese rhino horn craze has caused an unprecedented surge in rhino poaching throughout Africa and Asia bring the animal to the brink of extinction. In South Africa, home to 80 percent of Africa's rhino population, 1,215 rhinos were killed in 2014.

Matthew Markus, CEO of Pembient says his company will sell rhino horns at one-eighth of the price of the original, undercutting the price poachers can get and forcing them out eventually.

Why do I feel like this will just raise the price of real ones?

Varine said:

Why do I feel like this will just raise the price of real ones?

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only if there is a way to distinguish between the real ones and the fake ones

I'm sure there is, it might be difficult but it seems like it would be pretty obvious if you looked at it under a microscope or something.

They should definitely sell Elephant's Tusk too.

They should making people "completely uninterested" in buying rhino horn.

Who would be uninterested in having a rhino horn?

Hmm Buyers?

I don't think anyone buying a fake rhino horn is a person uninterested in a real rhino horn.