Jaco Muller turned his 15-year-old son’s idea into 197 rhino births

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In 2022, poachers had taken 14 white rhinos from private farms in Namibia in six weeks, so owners started removing their horns. One cow had a horn 86 centimeters (34 inches) long. Jaco Muller said he was nearly in tears when it was removed. “It is such a magnificent animal,” he said. “But for the animal’s sake, it is for the best.” Dehorning gave poachers less reason to kill a rhino. For Muller, the sight of a dehorned rhino was preferable to finding a dead one. The idea for breeding rhinos came from his son, then 15, as a school project. In 2010, Muller converted the family’s antelope-breeding operation into what became the Rhino Momma Project in Namibia’s Kunene region. Muller believed that breeding more white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum), keeping them secure enough to reproduce, and then replenishing populations across Africa could help save the species. So he built a breeding program with a rhino-custodianship farm and the nonprofit Help Our Rhinos Now, or HoRn. The first calf was born in 2013; by 2025, the project had become one of Namibia’s larger privately run rhino-breeding operations. Kifaru Lodge, which Muller opened in 2018, brought in money from tourists to help cover security and rhino care. Muller also supported legalizing the trade in rhino horn. His argument was that prohibition let criminals collect the profits while farm owners and conservation groups paid for security.…This article was originally published on

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