17-Oct-09 1:00 PM CST

Stolen Rhino Bottom Jaw Found; Horns Still a Dilemma

ALBANY - A man looking for boxes in a trash bin found the bottom jaw from a stolen rhinoceros skull at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday, an Albany Police Department official said.

The skull was stolen Wednesday at Albany Check Casher, 135 N. Slappey Blvd. The rhino was one of many hunting trophies business owner Allan Gleaton has on display in the business front area.

"Carter Christian was looking through the Dumpster for boxes at Harvey's at 325 N. Slappey when he found the jaw," said Phyllis Banks, Albany Police Department spokeswoman said. "He took it home, set it on the porch and called police."

Police are processing the bottom jaw of the 80-pound skull for fingerprints and other clues connected with the theft. That the thieves threw the jaw away and kept the top part of the skull with its 18-inch-long horn and a slightly smaller one could give an indication to the motive of the theft.

"Rhino horn fetches a high price in China, where it is ground into medicinals, and Yemen, where it is carved into dagger handles. In the mid-1990s, when sanctions were imposed on Taiwan for rhino-horn trade, one pound of rhino horn could command more than $60,000," according to the Web site nationalzoo.si.edu.

Perhaps because the trade in rhino horns is not legal, no recent prices could be found.

The medicinal use of rhino horn has long been shown by science to be a superstition, said Rhishja Larson, a writer for Green options Media, in an e-mail.

With poachers and other hunters using loopholes in laws, "The killing of rhino has reached a 15-year-high," Larson wrote, "due to the insatiable appetite for rhino horn in Asia (especially China and Vietnam) - and the 'new wealth' in China."

While selling rhino horns may be illegal, hunting rhino in South Africa was legal when Gleaton shot his trophy in 2004, he said. It was also legal to bring the trophy back, he added.

"I don't think they can get much money for the horns here in this country," Gleaton said. "A special agent at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department told me they would have to get it out of the country. The agent said there is a nationwide lookout for the skull at airports."

Calls to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department's law enforcement arm were not immediately returned Friday.

There are a couple of rare black rhinos at Cheehaw, said Doug Porter, the park's executive director. They are kept under security.

"We have the rhinocerous secured in their barn at night," Porter said. "We have constant security, I'm not too worried about them."

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