Skip to main content

Can incredibly realistic 3D-printed rhino horns stop poachers?

Rhinoceros poaching is an enormous problem worldwide, with an estimated 7,245 African rhinos lost to poachers over the last decade alone. We’ve previously covered high tech solutions to the poaching problem ranging from the use of drones to keep tabs on wildlife populations to an ambitious plan to catch poachers in the act by embedding video cameras directly into the horns of wild rhinos.

An innovative startup is hoping that is has another solution to offer, however: 3D printing.

Recommended Videos

Seattle-based biotech startup Pembient has spent the past several years working to develop artificial rhino horns it hopes will eventually be indistinguishable from the real thing. These synthetic horns are created with an engineering process involving keratin, the main protein found in rhino horns, combined with rhino DNA. This creates a special 3D printing ink that can be used to create authentic-looking horns.

The theory behind Pembient’s work: These can be pushed into the rhino horn supply chain (primarily in China), so that people won’t know whether they are buying real rhino horn or fake ones. Pembient hopes this will lower the value of wild rhino horn, and severely dent the profits that currently drive poachers to risk their lives killing rhinos.

At present, the company hasn’t created a finished product, although it has created numerous low fidelity replicas. As a result of this, the exact prices for the fabricated rhino horns hasn’t been made public — but it would certainly be cheaper than the real thing. Pembient isn’t stopping at rhinos, either. In addition, it has plans to create 3D printed versions of pangolin scales, elephant tusks, tiger bones, and presumably numerous other biofabricated versions of items that cause the real life poaching of endangered species.

While it remains to be seen whether over-supplying fake rhino horns and other items is really the best approach to counter poaching (personally, we’d like to see this in conjunction with other methods designed to counteract the threat). However, if it can help cut down on the unnecessary slaughter of animals in the wild, we’re all for it.

And, hey, from a biomedical perspective, we’re all for any innovative research that could lead to the 3D bioprinting of more lifelike bones.

Luke Dormehl
Former Digital Trends Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Fighting football injuries with 3D-printed, hyper-personalized pads
The Protect3d 3D scanning process.

If you’ve ever watched a movie about sports, you’ve seen it. It's that moment that occurs two-thirds of the way into the story, when the protagonists’ inevitable victory suddenly seems a lot less certain. Maybe the inspirational mentor winds up in the ER, muttering motivational slogans from a hospital bed. Perhaps the unorthodox coach wins over the team, only to be fired by management for thinking too far outside the box. Possibly the star lacrosse player has a crisis of faith and realizes he wants to be an acapella singer rather than a jock.

 

Read more
AMD’s 3D-stacked Ryzen 7 5800X3D is ‘world’s fastest gaming processor’
AMD CEO presenting new CPU.

The first processor to use a 3D V-Cache technology was announced at the big AMD CES 2022 keynote. The tech was first announced at Computex 2021, and fans have been eagerly awaiting a processor that will put it to use.

That processor is the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which seems like a strange place to start a new range of processors. AMD has its Ryzen 9 chips, after all. That's because the new Ryzen 7 can outclass AMD's Ryzen 9 5900X while gaming, despite using the same architecture.

Read more
Need a last-minute Halloween costume? Check out these 3D-printable getups
3D printed Halloween costumes

Still not sure what to dress up as for Halloween this year? Well, instead of frantically scrambling around town looking for the right shop with the right stuff, have you considered 3D printing your Halloween costume? Check out our list of 3D-printable masks and costume pieces to get all geared up for this year's spooking, then fire up that printer.

If you've already finished your costume and want to get started on your scary movie watchlist, we've put together a list of the best horror movies on Netflix.
Squid Game soldier mask

Read more