“It’s not only losing that animal that you know personally and you love it’s another step in losing the whole species.”īarbara Durrant photographed at the rhino habitat at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s nikita kahn rhino rescue center in june 2021. “She was just the most amazing animal,” says Durrant, recalling Nola’s wide mouth, her skin the color of clay stone, and her distinctive horn, which curved toward the ground. Nola had also been euthanized, after age and infection caught up with her, in 2015. She lived at the Nikita Kahn Rhino Rescue Center, located at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, about 30 miles north of the city, and not far from where Durrant reports to work every day at the zoo’s Wildlife Biodiversity Bank. Nola was a northern white rhinoceros, one of only four that remained by the middle of the last decade, along with Sudan and his kin. Most people in San Diego knew Nola, though not the way Durrant did. She had never met Sudan, but she knew Nola. Half a world away, Barbara Durrant felt it. He lived out his final years under 24/7 armed protection at the conservancy, along with two of his female relatives. As the last male northern white in the world, he was both a global icon for conservation and a two-and-a-half-ton target-because the horn of even the most precious rhino is not safe from poachers. He was worn out and in pain.Īt age 45, Sudan was the final progenitor of the earth’s most endangered animal species: the northern white rhinoceros. Only about 11,000 white rhinos survive in the wild, and many organizations are working to protect this much loved animal.The day before he was euthanized by veterinarians in March of 2018, Sudan collapsed in the dirt at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, where he had lived since 2009. The white rhino once roamed much of sub-Saharan Africa, but today is on the verge of extinction due to poaching fueled by these commercial uses. The horn is also valued in North Africa and the Middle East as an ornamental dagger handle. Many animals have been killed for this hard, hair-like growth, which is revered for medicinal use in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The prominent horn for which rhinos are so well known has been their downfall. Females use their horns to protect their young, while males use them to battle attackers. Rhino horns grow as much as three inches (eight centimeters) a year, and have been known to grow up to five feet (1.5 meters) long. White rhinos have two horns, the foremost more prominent than the other. They may find one another by following the trail of scent each enormous animal leaves behind it on the landscape. Rhinos have sharp hearing and a keen sense of smell. They find a suitable water hole and roll in its mud, coating their skin with a natural bug repellent and sunblock. Under the hot African sun, white rhinos take cover by lying in the shade. Their single calf does not live on its own until it is about three years old. Females reproduce only every two and a half to five years. White rhinos live on Africa’s grassy plains, where they sometimes gather in groups of as many as a dozen individuals. White rhinos graze on grasses, walking with their enormous heads and squared lips lowered to the ground. They use their lips to pluck leaves and fruit from the branches. Black rhinos are browsers that get most of their sustenance from eating trees and bushes. The difference in lip shape is related to the animals’ diets. The black rhino has a pointed upper lip, while its white relative has a squared lip. They are different not in color but in lip shape. Height: 160 – 177 cm (Female, At Shoulder), 170 – 185 cm (Male, At Shoulder)īoth black and white rhinoceroses are actually gray. Lower classifications: Northern white rhinoceros, Southern White Rhinoceros It has a wide mouth used for grazing and is the most social of all rhino species. The white rhinoceros or square-lipped rhinoceros is the largest and most numerous species of rhinoceros that exists. OSCAP International Rhino Coalition – Journal.Horn of Contention, A review of literature on the economics of trade in Rhino horn.Leonardo’s sailors: A review of the economic analysis of wildlife trade. International Rhino Coalition – Journal.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |