What is the world coming to when thieves break into museums to steal the horns or tusks from stuffed rhinos and elephants? It probably never occurred to the culprits that these bodily parts for exhibitions and museums have long since been exchanged with their real bits for fake ones made of plastic. It would seem that when they were busy carrying away their "precious bounty" they would have noticed how light it was.

Then again, who can blame them for trying when, after all, the price for a single kg of horn can fetch as much as EUR 50,000 on the black market. The CITES treaty (Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna; www.cites.org) is often accused of not going far enough to have any real impact on the blood-letting of live animals and the butchery of stuffed creatures on display would seem to support this notion. When you take a look at the numbers of poached rhinos and elephants in various African nations and realise the figures are climbing again – all for the sake of traditional horn carving or use in traditional medicine in places such as Thailand, Malaysia and especially China, where newly gained wealth is put to use purchasing elaborate carvings for their homes or to enhance fertility likelihood.

So perhaps the (dim-witted) individuals who went to all the effort of breaking into the Natural Science Museum in Bonn, Germany, helped prove a point that plastic looks as good as the real thing…too bad it is not worth as much.