Rhino conservation involves difficult welfare tradeoffs between the acute stress of management interventions (dehorning, tracking) and the protection they provide against poaching-related death and injury.
Individual rhinos killed by poachers often die slowly from snare injuries, gunshot wounds, or having horns hacked off while still alive — causing extreme acute suffering. Rhinos in high-poaching areas experience chronic stress from proximity to poachers, gunshots, and human disturbance. Dehorning causes acute procedural stress through immobilization but may prevent death through poaching. The welfare calculus — acute stress of a welfare-conscious dehorning procedure versus the risk of traumatic death through poaching — generally favors dehorning in high-risk areas. However, dehorning is not a complete solution as partial dehorning still leaves a stub of value to poachers, and some populations with dehorned individuals have still been killed.