Who eats a rhinoceros? Why would you farm them? And for that matter, how would you farm them? They're not docile, compliant animals like cows who will just line up in the barn waiting to be milked. They're mean! And extremely powerful!

Actually, they will line up. We spent the night at a zoo the other weekend with the girl scouts. Part of the behind the scenes tour was the keeper hog-calling the rhino over to the pen gate and scratching it behind the ears like a puppy, which it really seemed to enjoy, and then letting all of us do it too. Awesome.

I think it would be a space thing. They're large animals, and can attack if threatened, but not mean. They are hugely powerful.

We also got to hand feed the giraffes Romaine lettuce. It was just a totally awesome night!

Well some countries now allow elephant, lion, or tiger hunts, with a lot of the proceeds going to the villages in the area of the hunts. (And usually large chunks of the meat.) Since that was implemented the villagers have pretty much stopped anyone else from poaching for tusks, and the other various parts.

So even if not direct farming, give the locals a financial incentive to protect the "crop" does make sense.

Well, I don't know what subspecies of rhino you interacted with, or where it was in its stage of growth, but I have my doubts about a six-foot-at-the-shoulder white rhino would be suitable for farming. Moreover, since the only thing anyone ever seems to want from a rhinoceros is its horn, farming them would leave an awful lot of rhino to dispose of.

There's a reason that only a handful of animals have been domesticated over the last 10,000 or so years. Rhinos, zebras, giraffes, elephants are not domesticated and won't be for a while.
I deplore the "crop" idea by Jim, above, but it is probably the best method to save the remaining wild animals. I mean, in the wild, not in zoos. If something doesn't have a "value", it will not mean much to most people.

You know what domestic animal is really dangerous? Dairy bulls. It fact they are so mean to keep and handle, the pretty much the entire dairy industry went to AI as soon as it was commercially available.

http://www.gemplers.com/docs/tailgate-training-tip-sheets/98-bull-danger-en.pdf

They're mean! And extremely powerful!

And so were cows, 20,000+ years ago. Dogs were barely removed from wolves and foxes at the time. Sheep and goats? be mindful of the ram or billy goat's horns.

Gored by a rhino or gored by a billy goat, you're still gored.

Elephants were too domesticated. Check out India. They were a source of transportation and heavy lifting. Shoot, it was only recently the circus was no longer allowed to use elephants as labor to put up big tops. I remember going to see them when the circus came.

I think we should consult Ms. Temple about this.

>> We also got to hand feed the giraffes Romaine lettuce. It was just a totally awesome night!

Every child should be able to experience something like this. Hell, every adult as well.

I was at a zoo in Europe a while back and there was an area just outside the elephant pit with long wild grass. We tore out handfulls and fed it to the elephants by hand \ trunk - truly an incredible experience.

If I remember that was also the day I first saw an elephant boner. They are about 3 or 4 feet long and move like a human arm!!

Why "farm" rhinos? They are being poached into extinction not for their meat, but for their horns -- which are more valuable than gold in east Asia and the middle east.

Rhinos don't have to be killed to harvest their horns, only sedated. Then the horn grows back. If there is a supply of rhino horn available commercially, so that it becomes relatively inexpensive, then it makes no sense to take the risk of poaching, and killing, a wild rhino.

Yes, but farming bald eagles would not satisfy the desire of some to eliminate our property rights.

gored by a billy goat

That's better than being bushwhacked by a quail.

Rhinos don't have to be killed to harvest their horns, only sedated. Then the horn grows back. If there is a supply of rhino horn available commercially, so that it becomes relatively inexpensive, then it makes no sense to take the risk of poaching, and killing, a wild rhino. -- Jay R at May 28, 2013 12:10 PM

As I noted above, have an annual rhino sedation day, harvest the horns, and a lot of the money goes to the local villagers. Want to bet they will arm up and protect "their rhinos"?

There was a 60 Minutes years ago that had the country's soldiers leaning against the rhinos as they guarded them.

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That's better than being bushwhacked by a quail. -- JD at May 28, 2013 5:11 PM

OT/Semi-related:

Well there are now nine new codes for injuries from the macaw. I bet there is one for quail too.

From the 2007 "The Book of General Ignorance" by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson, page 66:

Q. Where do most tigers live?

A. The United States.

(To read the whole entry, see here):

http://books.google.com/books?id=1Mjd2GCRPmAC&pg=PA66&dq=%22most+tigers%22+%22united+states%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JWanUbCoDbTl0AHuw4C4AQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22most%20tigers%22%20%22united%20states%22&f=false

Apparently, there are well under 8,000 WILD tigers on the entire planet. However:

".....there are thought to be 4,000 tigers living in captivity in Texas alone. The American Zoo and Aquarium Association estimates that up to 12,000 tigers are being kept as private pets in the United States. Mike Tyson personally owns four of them."

Also:

"Tigers cannot abide the smell of alcohol. They will savage anyone who has been drinking."

Oh yes - from the same book:

Q: Where did Marco Polo come from?

A: Croatia.

Marco Polo (or 'Mark Chicken' in English) was born Marko Pilić in Korcula, Dalmatia, in 1254, then a protectorate of Venice.