
Photo of butchered rhino is this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year winner - sohkamyung
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41656188
======
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 these cuties [5][6]. It's a good gift.

You should also check out
[http://reddit.com/r/babyelephantgifs](http://reddit.com/r/babyelephantgifs)
for a daily dose of elephant gifs.

[0] [http://www.iapf.org/](http://www.iapf.org/)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-
Poaching_Fo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-
Poaching_Foundation)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander)

[3]
[http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/](http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust](https://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] [https://www.instagram.com/p/BZz6S-fFBQL/?taken-
by=dswt](https://www.instagram.com/p/BZz6S-fFBQL/?taken-by=dswt)

~~~
throwspamaway
Even if you're just posting links to your favorite charities and soliciting
donations, it's still spam.

A comment search for "You guys should consider donating" yields 9 highly
similar results with your name attached.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=You%20guys%20should%20consider...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=You%20guys%20should%20consider%20donating&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

~~~
adamnemecek
Fite me irl. Note that each of these comments was highly upvotes so community
has spoken.

------
ekianjo
"Faith in humanity". Always makes me wonder why some people hold this kind of
unproven belief that the human race as a whole is a good and loving one and
that evil is only the exception. There is no such thing. Humans can and will
behave like monsters when the incentives are there, whether it is for their
own survival, or their own benefit.

~~~
mercer
What's the point of a comment like this? It seems pointlessly negative and
about as far from insightful as statements like "all charity is ultimately
self-interest, by some definitions".

What do you, or anyone reading your comment, get out of it?

I'm a tiny bit pissed off, but perhaps that's just morning grumpiness. But I'm
also honestly curious.

~~~
wruza
I agree with you that comments like that do not add to anyone’s knowledge.
These are kinda too extreme to get right at first part of life and obvious at
the second. If someone positively explained to me what life really is when I
was young, I wouldn’t spend around a decade on bs ideas that are simply not
there.

------
steve19
Incredibly sad. Rhinos are real-life unicorns.

Farm them for horns (removing the horn is painless [0], once the horn is
removed release into the wild), tax the production of horns, use the tax money
to find conservation and security.

The increased supply will decrease prices, making the hunting of rhino less
profitable.

The argument against this is that increased supply will increase demand. Also,
its not hard to see corruption eating away the profits, and therefore
investment into conservation.

[0] [http://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/does-it-hurt-a-
rhino-w...](http://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/does-it-hurt-a-rhino-when-
it-gets-dehorned-20160907)

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Why they don't just remove (and destroy) the horns from baby rhinos, and then
again periodically throughout the rhinos' lives?

~~~
vacri
Baby rhinos don't have horns (they grow a bit like hair), and these are not
domestic animals. It's like saying "why not tag all the mountain lions in the
US, then you know where they all are".

------
rqs
> Brent Stirton says the things he's seen have dented his faith in humanity

It's sad that we're not advance enough to become a higher being that can co-
live with other beings without ... contention.

When I was in elementary school, my the text book and so my teacher often use
the phase 'Human conquered the nature' (Or 'conquers', my memory is fuzzy
about that).

Then as I grow up, I start to wounder, is that actually true? We're the part
of the nature. How can we label ourself as a conqueror if we're part of it?

But that phase seems imprinted in lot's of peoples mind deeply: We're the
conqueror, and so the nature is just a pool of resource for us to use.

Since we're the conqueror, we can decide what to do, what not.

That rhino's horn is nothing but a resource to us. We need it's horn, so we
collect it. Killing the rhino is just the process of collecting. So we have no
feeling killing it, neither care about that rhino will die in the process.

And sometime, we not just do that to rhinos, because as conqueror, we decide
which or who will be conquered.

------
curun1r
As sad as the photo of the rhino makes me, I find the photo below of the
elephants in the palm plantation even sadder. So much of Southeast Asia's
forests have been destroyed to create palm oil plantations. It's not only
devastating for animals like the pictured elephants, but it's also a big
contributor to climate change.

Anyone who cares about the environment or ethical treatment of animals should
be reading labels and avoiding all products containing palm oil.

------
rubatuga
Anywhere I can access higher quality versions of these?

~~~
smhost
[https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&tbs=simg:CAQSkwEJHTLV...](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&tbs=simg:CAQSkwEJHTLVMJ6og4MahwELEKjU2AQaAAwLELCMpwgaYgpgCAMSKNoV_1grBFdcV3hX9CsoVphWnFfcKhzmrLdY3rirVN9Q-hjmWOI8q8DkaMPb3PQLBduPlE69anJ7vmjCbT2t_16D8fag8nq93VJqJwkfPMw3hEw7lST-4_1lET1rCAEDAsQjq7-CBoKCggIARIEjo9o7Qw)

------
ianai
Really makes me wonder if the tide will ever turn back from total annihilation
of all life.

~~~
crispinb
It would require the world to get together on a war footing to tackle threats
to sustainability. Right now. Vanishingly unlikely.

I suspect this is a pattern repeated throughout the universe. Once evolution
kicks up a species with the behavioural flexibility to escape ecological
limits on its reproductive success, it's likely just a biological
inevitability that it will pullulate uncontrollably. It will thus wipe out
everything in its path until its own nest is fouled and it dies back.

If the species in question happens to be one that, like ours, has attained
that flexibility via higher-order cognition, it will invent justifying
rationalisations for its destructive activities (destiny, economic growth
etc). But in the end it's just biology.

~~~
Grangar
We have yet to meet the Fermi Great Wall.

------
overcast
"My first child is going to be born in February; I'm 48. And I think I left it
such a long time because I kind of lost faith in a lot of the work we see as
photojournalists. You lose faith in humanity to some extent."

I share his sentiment. Such luck we have with this amazing planet, and all we
do is destroy it. Humanity is disgusting.

~~~
Banthum
Humanity is amazing. Billions of years of nothing but mindless senseless
suffering and death in the natural world, and finally we emerge, a creature
that can think beyond the next meal, next kill, next rape. Even if we do it
imperfectly, the fact we can try at all is possibly the most special thing
that has ever happened in the entire universe. Humanity is amazing.

~~~
sasas
You mean to say millions rather then billions? [1]

Either way, thanks for the positive message.

[1]
[http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/evolution/AnimalEvolution.shtml](http://sci.waikato.ac.nz/evolution/AnimalEvolution.shtml)

~~~
Simon_says
It's pretty crazy that life started on Earth about ~4 billion years ago,
almost as soon as there was liquid water, but the Cambrian Explosion didn't
occur until about ~0.5 billion years ago. Really makes you wonder what the
heck was going on for three and a half billion years. Also, maybe it's an
indication that life is easy to come by and exists in every little nook and
cranny in the Universe, but complex multi-cellular life is a larger hurdle.

~~~
ekianjo
Yup, this is a very likely possibility, that even if life emerges the other
conditioms may not be present to make it evolve to the next stage. Even the
fact that humans have made it ahead of other species is not given at all.
Other apes were far less lucky.

