The death of a dinosaur
IN 1881, the American Humanist Robert Green Ingersoll wrote the following in his publication ‘Some Reasons Why’, “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments – only consequences.”
How these words ring true today. Ingersoll was the son of a Congregationalist minister and brought up in a very devout family, but later in life he was known as ‘The Great Agnostic’. Just pause for a minute and reflect on what his words mean.
Sadly, on March 19, the day before the Spring Equinox, Sudan – the last living northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) was put to sleep at the ripe old age of 45 years at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy Reserve in northern Kenya. Today, there are only two females left of this subspecies, Sudan’s daughter Nanjin – a 27-year-old, and his 18-year-old granddaughter Fatu. Both rhinos remain on that reserve. Vanishing domain Even in the mid-20th century, this rhino subspecies roamed the savanna grasslands in parts of Uganda, Chad, Sudan, in the Central African Republic, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Subsequently, these areas became the tribal battlefields and poaching grounds of central Africa. With the rhino calves easily recognised ‘tweets’ to their mothers in almost cat-like meows, their mothers can easily be tracked by poachers and cruelly butchered for high prices and extraordinary profits from China, Vietnam and the Yemen, where they are valued as aphrodisiacs in local medicines or as carved decorative handles to daggers. Political turmoil and massacres In the 1970s and into the early 1980s, armed tribal conflicts occurred in the aforementioned countries and most northern white rhinos were wiped out in exchange for monies from the hornreceiving countries to purchase weapons. During that time, a small enclave of 14 northern white rhinos survived in the Garamba National Park, DRC. By the mid1990s this population of rhinos had more than doubled to 31. Tragically, a waring faction from Sudan invaded this park armed with AK47 automatic rifles and shot all these rhinos in a blatant massacre. Sudan’s history In the 1970s, the use of caged animals travelling in circuses was banned in the UK and in some parts of Europe, and people focussed their attention on wildlife safari parks for a family day trip. Such wildlife parks allowed exotic, captured animals to roam freely in hectares of countryside but within the fenced limits of the park.
Sudan, as a three-year-old calf and actually living in southern Sudan, was captured by a lasso and then taken to Dvur Kralove Zoo and Safari Park in then Czechoslovakia. During that period of ‘The Cold War’, he brightened up many a Czech child’s life. Gradually, the northern white rhino population increased as another male and two females joined him. At the time that the Czech Republic was declared, there were seven such rhinos in the safari park. Sudan’s daughter Nanjin was born through Sudan mating with her mother Nasima.
The manager of this conservancy had a far ranging vision to return his northern white rhinos, as far as was possible, to their wild natural habitat in the hope of further breeding to maintain the rapidly diminishing subspecies. Thus Sudan and another other male along with the two females were relocated to Kenya. They lived together as a family at OI Pejeta in a free ranging environment and a heavily guarded and protected location. Alas, the other male died. Sadly, Sudan and his ‘girls’ had surpassed their ‘sell by date’ for procreation and there were no other females or males existing anywhere.
Last October, 18 rhino years later from the time that Sudan arrived Kenya, he rapidly went downhill with old age degeneration of his muscles and tendons to the point this year, when he could no longer support his bodily weight and was in great pain. The veterinarians could do no more for him and he was mercifully put down. Considered for his friendliness, having spent much of his life near to humans, Sudan was regarded by all of the rangers at Ol Pejeta as no different from a family pet. His personal keeper, who religiously attended to the daily needs of Sudan, said upon his death, “I feel lonely now.” What greater tribute can be paid by man to such an enormous mammal? All is not lost The Ol Pejeta Conservancy worked closely with the German Leibniz Institute for Wildlife Research into Endangered Species by collecting sperm samples from Sudan and mixing them with the ova derived from the two remaining females using in vitro fertilisation (IVF) techniques. Alas, an embryo rhino was not created to transplant into a surrogate mother of the southern white rhino population. However, there is still hope that through stem cell technology, the northern white population may not be quite extinct for Sudan did not live in vain. Very shortly after he died, his testicles were removed and frozen.
Ol Peteja Conservancy and Nature Reserve manager Richard Vigne has estimated that the cost of creating a viable IVF herd of northern white rhinos over the next decade could run up to 6.5 million pounds. He has adamantly declared that, “Extinction caused by humans has to stop!” Already fundraising is in place sponsored by the Leibniz Institute in Germany, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, and the Dvur Kralove Wild Life Park in the Czech Republic and, indeed, with worldwide support.
Whilst Sudan is seen as the last male of the disappearing species of northern white rhinos, the western black rhino, which once roamed in the same areas became extinct in 2011. Today, there are only 50 Asian cheetahs in the wild, with fears that they will be extinct within the next 10 years. African elephants are threatened by extinction in their natural habitats in less than 10 years, if the poachers are not culled by then. Only a total worldwide ban on the ivory trade and also the sale of antique ivory can arrest such disasters. Lessons to be learned It is the illegal trade in endangered species of animals that will lead to their extinction. As long as the demand is there for horns, tusks and exotic pets, black-marketeers will continue to flourish.
Indigenous animals are worth more alive in the countries in which they live than dead with their parts sold and exported. It is their very existence that attracts photo-shooting tourists, who thus boost a country’s economy. Where these animals are allowed to live protected, by well-armed rangers and absolute law enforcements seen in action, the tourist industry will survive. The demand may also abruptly fall away when those people who use rhino horn, ostensibly for the cures to cancer, hangovers and impotence, wake up to reality to find that such alleged traditional medicines don’t work.
A final quote from Ingersoll says it all, “The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth.”
In my column in thesundaypost last week on ‘Protecting Pachyderms’, I stated that there were 20,000 white rhinos left in Kenya. I neglected to say that these are southern white rhinos. Only two northern white rhinos exist today – Nanjin and Fatu.