Jaco Muller, who turned his son’s concept into 197 rhino births, dies
In 2022, poachers in Namibia had taken 14 white rhinos from personal farms in six weeks, so farm house owners began eradicating their horns. That can take away the motivation to hunt the animals, as a result of poachers need the horns.
One cow had a horn 34 inches lengthy. Jaco Muller, an antelope breeder, stated he was practically in tears when it was eliminated. “It is such a powerful animal,” he said at the time. “But for the animal’s sake, it’s for one of the best.”
For Muller, the sight of a dehorned rhino was preferable to discovering a useless one.
The concept for breeding rhinos got here from his son, then 15, as a college venture. In 2010, Muller transformed the household’s breeding operation into what grew to become the Rhino Momma Project in Namibia’s Kunene area.
Muller believed that breeding extra white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum), conserving them safe sufficient to breed, after which replenishing populations throughout Africa may assist save the species. So he constructed 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 venture had turn into one in every of Namibia’s bigger privately run rhino-breeding operations.
Kifaru Lodge, which Muller opened in 2018, introduced in cash from vacationers to assist cowl safety and rhino care.
A rhino roams the Etosha National Park in Namibia in 2022.
(Chen Cheng / Xinhua / Getty Images)
Muller additionally supported legalizing the commerce in rhino horn. His argument was that prohibition let criminals gather the income whereas farm house owners and conservation teams paid for safety. He in contrast harvesting horn to shearing sheep: The animal would survive, the horn would develop again and a regulated market would possibly finance safety.
“Right now, solely poachers earn money from horns,” he said in 2025.
That was, and stays, a controversial argument. Opponents query whether or not a authorized commerce would allow laundering of poached rhino horns or improve demand. For Muller, the case got here from the economics of a breeding program: horns had been precious, and defending the animals was costly.
He believed rhinos wanted populations exterior Namibia as nicely. In a controversial move in 2024, 42 white rhinos from Kifaru Lodge had been exported to Texas. He cited the Arabian oryx, which survived by way of captive breeding and reintroduction, for example.
Muller typically used a gyrocopter, which is one thing like a helicopter however has totally different physics, to survey the reserve from the air, searching for indicators of intrusion and checking on rhinos throughout the property. On Sept. 19, Muller, 53, was killed when the gyrocopter crashed whereas he was monitoring rhinos and wildfire flare-ups close to Outjo.
By then, the school-project concept had turn into a herd of rhinos: The venture had recorded 197 births since its first calf arrived in 2013.
Butler is the founding father of Mongabay, an impartial information group centered on nature.
