Nevertheless, the demand for rhino horns and black market prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

WSJ: 3 charged in smuggling horns of endangered rhinos

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Justice Department have launched "Operation Crash" using undercover agents and electronic surveillance in an effort to stop the black market trade in rhino horns, which has led to poaching and has reduced the world's rhino population by more than 90 percent since 1970.

WSJ: 3 charged in smuggling horns of endangered rhinos

The curled horns of a buck are caught in a black oak.

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Team Cow, whose motto is "Playing Well With Udders Since 2004, " hauls the group's gear in a revamped school bus, painted white with black spots, with a pair of bull's horns.

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Rhino horn now rivals the price of gold on the black market and is trafficked to Yemen, where the horns are fashioned into handles for prized djambia daggers, and to the Far East, where China is the biggest market.

BBC: The rhino wars of central Kenya

But demand for rhino horns and the prices paid for them on the black market have soared in recent years, US prosecutors said.

BBC: Three charged in rhino horn smuggling ring

Despite having survived as a species for at least 50 million years, black and white rhino have been hunted to near-extinction because of their horns.

BBC: The rhino wars of central Kenya

In a ceremony for the winter solstice at the mountaintop monastery of Rumtek itself, drums throb, horns and conches low mournfully, and monks led by a cleric in elaborate robes and a huge black hat consign an offering to the bonfire.

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