be won and believe the only way to save the species is through legalizing the rhino horn trade.

"If farmers were making a profit out of rhinos they would have the will to guard them against poachers," said rancher John Hume, owner of the largest number of privately held rhino in the world. "Instead, they are siding with the poachers because a rhino is worth more dead than alive."

He said some farmers "just contract with an illegal dealer, shoot the rhino, bury the body, take the horn. It pays him to kill it."

Game ranchers have taken to giving quotes for rhino hunts depending on the weight of the horn, he said, though for Westerners the quote still comes according to the length. At its source, rhino horn is sellingin South Africa for about 10,000 rand a kilogram ($670 a pound), Hume said.

As the price soars abroad, some countries are asking why they cannot use a massive stockpile of rhino horns to finance conservation.

Africa has at least 55,000 pounds (25,000 kilograms) of rhino horn under government and private ownership, with 90 percent held in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

Zimbabwe, where top-ranking military and government officials are accused of profiting from rhino poaching, said in February it would ask CITES for a special dispensation to sell some of its stockpile.

Conservationists warn that a similar sale of elephant tusks in the 1990s only whetted people's appetite for ivory and led to a surge in elephant poaching.

"This is an emergency. We're at war here," said Joseph Okori of the World