
Sudan, last male northern white rhino, dies in Kenya - Jetroid
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066
======
majani
I'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...](https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/elephant-appeal-few-
are-willing-to-say-just-how-bad-the-poaching-crisis-is-9035157.html)

~~~
helb
Related 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-
de...](https://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/22/archives/elephants-are-declining-
rapidly-in-africa-african-elephants.html)

~~~
52-6F-62
They were also just implicated in the Cambridge Analytica story from Channel
4.

------
sbarre
The 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=...](https://support.worldwildlife.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=main_monthly&s_src=AWE1806OQ18299A01179RX)

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
I 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.

~~~
wingspar
More recently, the North American passenger pigeon. Billions to extinct in
19th century...
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon)

~~~
onychomys
Twentieth century, as Martha (probably the last member of the species,
although the standard post-extinction cryptic sightings continued into the
1930s) died in 1914.

If anybody wants to read an extremely complete book on the subject, it's hard
to do better than A Feathered River Across The Sky[0]. It's well written and
the science is sound.

[0]: [https://www.amazon.com/Feathered-River-Across-Sky-
Extinction...](https://www.amazon.com/Feathered-River-Across-Sky-
Extinction/dp/1620405342)

------
cfontes
This 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
This 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.

~~~
Sag0Sag0
Humanity is not natural apparently?

~~~
sbarre
Humans using machine guns and grenades to mow down entire packs of rhinos and
elephants in order to use chainsaws to remove horns and tusks from corpses?

Nope, that's not natural in my book.

~~~
TomMarius
Their point probably is that humans are a part of nature as well because we
naturally evolved from animals, and that moved us to the very top of the food
pyramid. Sometimes animals evolve bigger teeth to survive - and humans evolved
bigger brains.

------
seba_dos1
Having just read Douglas Adams' "Last Chance to See" with its part about
northern white rhinos, it's especially disheartening to read this now...

------
adamnemecek
You 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_Fo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-
Poaching_Foundation)

[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...](http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp?N=318)

[6] [http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb](http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb)

------
nkkollaw
Of 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
Not 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
Yeah, 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-
pro...](https://www.economist.com/news/china/21678838-remarkable-progress-
ivory-and-shark-fin-none-rhino-horn-elephants-fight-back)) Sadly, this seems
to have not worked for the rhino.

~~~
nkkollaw
> Yeah, I'm not sure either. (The misspellings, perhaps?)

Cell phone :-)

------
wunderlust
The 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.)

------
pvaldes
Indian 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.

------
Tomminn
Seems 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
Why should an animal have to go through that, when it's human who caused it?
He does not deserve that.

------
amelius
Is cloning an option?

~~~
dagaci
They will attempt to use IVF resurrect the species ..

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/20/last-
mal...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/20/last-male-white-
rhino-is-put-down)

------
yohann305
Can't wait for space colonization where we'd create an Earth-like planet with
all organisms, but humans.

~~~
Jetroid
You'd still need some human control, to stop invasive species (eg the Kudzu
vine comes to mind) from killing off other species.

~~~
undersuit
Human control is the exact reason why Kudzu is an invasive species.

~~~
Jetroid
Kudzu 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
An 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.

~~~
Jetroid
No, an invasive species is one that is an alien to the area and that is likely
to cause damage to the ecosystem it is now present in. [1] Human influence is
the main cause, but species may get there by other means. [2] Transport vector
is unimportant to the definition of invasive species or not. One study
considers a definition where species which are native but that are causing
ecological damage could be considered an 'invasive species'. [3]

Also from [3]:

> Invading propagules begin as residents in a potential donor region (stage
> 0), some of which are taken into the transport vector (stage I), usually by
> humans. If these propagules survive transport and release to become
> introduced (stage II), they have the potential to establish (stage III) in a
> novel environment.

Note that 'stage I' notes 'usually by humans', not 'by humans'. Ie. a species
which uses some natural phenomena as a transport vector can still be
considered an invasive species. [1] says similar - "Human actions are the
primary means of invasive species introductions." \- implying that non-human
methods are also possible for invasive species introductions.

It's nonsensical to say that as soon as something migrates using a natural
phenomena that it becomes a 'native' to that area.

[1]
[https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/whatis.shtml](https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/whatis.shtml)
[2]
[https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/toolkit/vectors.shtml](https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/toolkit/vectors.shtml)
[3]
[http://www.esf.edu/efb/parry/502_reading/colautti2004.pdf](http://www.esf.edu/efb/parry/502_reading/colautti2004.pdf)

