Sudan, last male northern white rhino, dies in Kenya

[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...

[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...

[SEJeff]

Thanks 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?

[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/

1: https://www.elephanttrust.org/

2: https://www.savetherhino.org/

3: https://support.worldwildlife.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=...

[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.

[tosser0004]

With Sub-saharan Africa’s population alone projected to rise by 3.5 billion to over 4.5 billion by the end of the century I share your concern. Europe and North American need to begin planning now for dealing with the migrant crisis which is just now in its very earliest stages. The environmental impact in Africa would otherwise be deviatating.

I have to expect upwards of a billion people from this region will need to migrate to Europe and probably an even higher number to the Americas.

[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.

[caf]

On the plus side, the other subspecies, the southern white rhino was down to only a few hundred individuals a century ago, but is now estimated to have a population of 20,000.

[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/

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

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander

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

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust

[5] http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp...

[6] 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.

[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...

[bayesian_horse]

That's why they collected the tissue samples. But they are trying to perform IVF first.

[yohann305]

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

[bornonline1]

Do you understand how useless humans are?

[Jetroid]

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