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Sudan, last male northern white rhino, dies in Kenya
- throwawaymanbot 9y agoWait till the American far-right hear about this...
- Vosporos 9y agoWow, sad! And here I thought free market would have prevented it… /s
- nkkollaw 9y agoOf coirse it's sad, but I'm more amazed by the fact that man can manage to wipe out a whole species for traditional medicice (which I assume doesn't work in this case?) and dagger handles.
- majos 9y agoNot sure why this comment is being downvoted. Wikipedia attributes poaching pretty much entirely to demand for rhino horn in "traditional Asian medicine". > Rhino horn can fetch tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram on the black market in Asia and, depending on the exact price, can be worth more than its weight in gold.
- soundwave106 9y agoYeah, I'm not sure either. (The misspellings, perhaps?) From what I've read, there has been some pretty decent progress in reducing demand for elephant ivory, which has a similar issue in Asia, due to various information campaigns. (https://www.economist.com/news/china/21678838-remarkable-progress-ivory-and-shark-fin-none-rhino-horn-elephants-fight-back https://www.economist.com/news/china/21678838-remarkable-pro...) Sadly, this seems to have not worked for the rhino.
- nkkollaw 9y ago> Yeah, I'm not sure either. (The misspellings, perhaps?) Cell phone :-)
- jackhack 9y agoI saw a billboard in central North Carolina which read "I am not medicine" or similar, with a sad-looking rhino closeup photo in the background. Two thoughts on this: 1) Isn't this billboard in the wrong continent and language? North Americans in central NC are not the ones killing and consuming these endangered animals. 2) (cynically) Billboards are expensive. There must be money to be made in this misery. I guess we are ripe for knee-jerk guilt-trips and the donations that follow. It disgusts me.
- yohann305 9y agoCan't wait for space colonization where we'd create an Earth-like planet with all organisms, but humans.
- Jetroid 9y agoYou'd still need some human control, to stop invasive species (eg the Kudzu vine comes to mind) from killing off other species.
- jdmichal 9y agoYes. Nature is not static. If your goal is a static status quo, that will still require human intervention.
- undersuit 9y agoHuman control is the exact reason why Kudzu is an invasive species.
- Jetroid 9y agoKudzu is an invasive species because it out-competes other types of flora. It is not an invasive species purely because of human control. True, humans have helped it affect other species by moving them, but if Kudzu somehow (perhaps a form of geological change happens in thousands of years like a land bridge, or continental shift, or maybe the seeds are simply moved by some migrating population of bird) reached these new ecosystems by it's own means, it would still be an invasive species. My point is that unless there is some way to restrict which 'biomes' different organisms can inhabit, some invasive species will outcompete others, particularly if some less competitive species are evolved for specific niche environments only found on Earth. This segregation is not likely to happen naturally as it has on earth, and thus the idealistic diversity and preservation that yohann305 was hoping for wouldn't occur without human intervention and control.
- lightbyte 9y agoAn invasive species is by definition something not native to an area. >if Kudzu somehow (perhaps a form of geological change happens in thousands of years like a land bridge, or continental shift, or maybe the seeds are simply moved by some migrating population of bird) reached these new ecosystems by it's own means, it would still be an invasive species. If the plant migrated on it's own than that area is now its native area.
- amelius 9y agoIs cloning an option?
- dagaci 9y agoThey will attempt to use IVF resurrect the species .. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/20/last-male-white-rhino-is-put-down https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/20/last-mal...
- bayesian_horse 9y agoThat's why they collected the tissue samples. But they are trying to perform IVF first.
- cfontes 9y agoThis is very sad but natural selection now is unfortunately like this now. Unless you are small and can eat human garbage or we care about your species in some extend (Cows, Pigs, Horses, Dogs, Birds, Cats and so on) you are going to become extinct in the next couple of hundred years. Which is depressing to say the least. Even if technology brings them back, it will be for zoos only for a very long time because the real problem is that their environment is gone, so it's not even worth it unless we have that problem fixed. I am a bachelor in Biology besides the computer degree and this is something I perceive as a deep loss not because of this specific specimen but because of the trend it again confirms. We have modified the key features a species need to survive because of the way we are and big beautiful beasts like this are essentially doomed unless we change our ways, which I am very pessimist about. I guess this is something we will need to get used to, it is going to happen more times in the future, our grand children might be the first ones to not see a live elephant or giraffe animals so common in cartoons and they toys will be like dinosaurs for them. It's terrible to think about it.
- sbarre 9y agoThis is not really from natural selection. Rhinos have been killed by humans by the hundreds of thousands over the last 30 years. There's nothing natural about that.
- ekianjo 9y ago> There's nothing natural about that. What does natural mean then? It's not like they disappeared by some magical event or an asteroid falling on the face of the Earth.
- sbarre 9y agoThe death of a (sub-)species. We are destined to see more of this in our lifetimes, given how some people treat the natural world and our animal kingdom neighbours.. Other sub-species of rhinos, and even elephants, may not be far behind. But we are making progress. In the 1980s, it is estimated that over 600,000 elephants were killed by poachers in less than 10 years. We are now "down" to 20,000 killed per year by poaching. But sadly, this is still more than are actually born in a year, so it's not quite enough progress, and there is still much work to be done. If you feel like supporting conservation and education efforts to help with this progress, here are a few places to start: The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust[0], The Amboseli Trust[1], Save the Rhino[2], and of course the World Wildlife Fund[3] if you want to support conservation in a broader sense. 0: https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/ https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/ 1: https://www.elephanttrust.org/ https://www.elephanttrust.org/ 2: https://www.savetherhino.org/ https://www.savetherhino.org/ 3: https://support.worldwildlife.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=main_monthly&s_src=AWE1806OQ18299A01179RX https://support.worldwildlife.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=...
- ajeet_dhaliwal 9y agoI was at the Natural History Museum in London on Saturday and astounded to learn the Mastodon was still around 13,000 years ago. I started looking online and realized that many of these animals I thought were super prehistoric are more recent that I thought, including the Mammoth (present until 4,500 years ago). The plaque suggested a bunch of reasons for the Mastodon extinction but one of them included hunting. We (our species) have been at this for a long time. Perhaps if the Earth was far larger they would stand a better chance.
- seba_dos1 9y agoHaving just read Douglas Adams' "Last Chance to See" with its part about northern white rhinos, it's especially disheartening to read this now...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- majani 9y agoI've said this before on this forum, but I'll reiterate it here since it's relevant. As a Kenyan I can advise if there are any endangered species indigenous to Kenya that you would like to see, your best bet is to just go see them before they die out. The most prominent poacher in our country is the president's mother, Mama Ngina Kenyatta, and she's been poaching relentlessly ever since the current president's father was our President[1]. No media company will talk about this if they want to retain their license to report in Kenya, but Google is your friend on this topic. Given this fact, I'd also advice well wishers to save their money donating to our conservation efforts, it's a pretty lost cause given the circumstances, unless you're the most glass half full type of guy. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/elephant-appeal-few-are-willing-to-say-just-how-bad-the-poaching-crisis-is-9035157.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/elephant-appeal...
- SEJeff 9y agoThanks for your comment (take your damned upvote!). My question for you: What can we do, if anything, to help conserve what is left in Kenya for future generations?
- majani 9y agoMaybe educate the superstitious buyers that these animal parts are not magical. That might reduce the demand and therefore reduce the supply
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- helb 9y agoRelated link – NY Times article about Kenyatta family (including Mama Ngina Kenyatta, who is almost 85 now) being involved in poaching, from 1975: https://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/22/archives/elephants-are-declining-rapidly-in-africa-african-elephants.html https://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/22/archives/elephants-are-de...
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- wunderlust 9y agoThe one bit of positivity I get out of this is, well at least white rhino poaching is over. (Unless they're revived by cloning, as one person mentioned, in which case either they remain in captivity or poaching continues.)
- adamnemecek 9y agoYou guys should consider donating to the International Anti-Poaching Foundation[0][1] which fights these poachers. The founder, Damien Mander[2], is an Australian ex spec-ops sniper who is using his military experience to train the park rangers since they, unlike the poachers, tend to be poorly equipped and trained as well as understaffed. There is also the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust[3][4] which takes care of elephant and rhino orphans (most of them are orphans due to poaching). For $50 a year, you can become a sponsor of a particular animal and they'll send you photos and updates about how your sponsored animal is doing. You can for example sponsor this little fella [5][6]. [0] http://www.iapf.org/en/ http://www.iapf.org/en/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Poaching_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Poaching_Fo... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander [3] http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust [5] http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp?N=318 http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp... [6] http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb
- Tomminn 9y agoSeems kinda crazy to me that you'd put down a rhino that is the last male of its kind. Even one in pain. Why not induce a coma, and keep those gametes alive?
- birksherty 9y agoWhy should an animal have to go through that, when it's human who caused it? He does not deserve that.
- pvaldes 9y agoIndian Javan Rhino. Extinct around 1920 Vietnamese Javan Rhino. Extinct 2010 Northern White Rhino. Functionally extinct 2018 Sumatran Rhino. 100 animals remaining. Javan Rhino. 63 animals remaining in a single population. None of them on zoos.