Stossel: Save the Rhinos!

An entrepreneur has a plan to save the rhinos from poachers, but environmental groups hate his idea.

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Poachers massacre rhinos for their horns. Some are carved into ornaments. Some are ground up and sold as medicine. Just one can sell for as much as $300,000.

Entrepreneur Matt Markus co-founded the company Pembient to save rhinos. His plan is to 3D-print fake rhino horns that are indistinguishable from the real thing. He will then flood the market with the cheap fakes, and drive the price so low that poachers have no reason to kill rhinos.

Markus says: "When things are abundant, people don't kill, fight, or steal."

Free markets are often the best way of protecting the environment. South Africa once tried something similar by legalizing rhino farming and the sale of horns within the country. The rhino population quadrupled in just two decades.

But in 2008, South Africa banned sales of rhino horn again. Poaching shot up.

Now outlets like BBC say "the rhino could be extinct within 10 years."

Sounds like an emergency. One would think that the people who want to preserve wildlife would love Markus's idea to save rhinos.

But they hate his idea. Watch the video to see John Stossel confront a representative of the Humane Society about its opposition to Markus's plan.

Produced by Maxim Lott. Edited by Josh Swain.

Horn Maker documentary footage from Juliette Marquis / Horn Maker, LLC. More info at hornmaker.org