Sudan, last male northern white rhino, dies in Kenya | Hacker News Reader

Sudan, last male northern white rhino, dies in Kenya

bbc.co.uk

245 pointsJetroid79 comments

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...

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?

Maybe educate the superstitious buyers that these animal parts are not magical. That might reduce the demand and therefore reduce the supply

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...

They were also just implicated in the Cambridge Analytica story from Channel 4.

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=...

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.

For a more recent example, the Moa of New Zealand went extinct only a few hundred years after human arrival.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/why-did-new-zealands-...

Also the famous Dodo : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo

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

Non-mobile link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon

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...

I was about to mention the Great Auk [0] but realized while reading up on it that scientists have started asking questions about the previously official sad story that I heard as a child.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk

Yes, Mammoths were alive at the time the Pyramids were built. Kinda mind-blowing.

I always though Giants animals have been on earth longer than we though and were the sources of our legend such as as dragons or sea monsters.

Well, the largest animal known to have ever existed is still around today.

Another interesting one gone: Aurochs, larger ancestors of domestic cattle, died out in 1627. They were famous in Greek myths and used in Roman arenas. Elasmotherium, a sort of furry rhino, died out about 10,000 years ago, and could have inspired tales of Unicorns or other mythical beasts. Aepyornis - The Elephant Bird (9.8ft tall, 880lbs) died out in the 11th century, and Dromornis was even taller. Quagga, a subspecies of Zebra, went extinct in the 19th century.

Many animals may have been spared extinction by humans due to the fact that the western world thought they were myths, until late in the second millennium AD when furthering exploration brought back evidence of their existence. Among them: tigers, komodo dragons, giant squid, giraffe, pandas, gorillas.

Dromornis was prehistoric, and would never have encountered humans, according to wikipedia

https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromornis

Yuval Noah Hariri's Sapiens devotes several pages to the extinctions of various prehistoric species in the Americas and Australia, and how they all seem to curiously line up with the first signs of human migration. Only African species evolved around early apes and hominids, and learned to fear their wiles. Our current mass extinction is rivaled by the spear-y wave of death that followed humans' advance out of Africa.

Tasmanian tiger is still one I’m sad about. The video of the last one in a zoo makes me so sad :(

New Zealand also has some horrifying stories (the last group of a thought to be extinct bird was killed by a lighthouse owners cat after he’d sent one to be identified. I hate cats.)

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.

I don't understand why to you, population rise implies migration.

Africa (currently) has a lower population density than Europe or Asia. We know people can sustainably live at much higher densities than Africans currently do.

The drivers behind migration are global inequality and conflict. If you want to reduce migration, start there. Isolationism and closed borders will only ultimately lead to more humanitarian crises, and more migration pressure.

True.

Even a place like Congo is, geographically, the size of Western Europe, with about 1/6th the population. Over population isn't really an issue in sub-saharan africa, conflict is.

Can't grow enough food at current cultural level, and improving the cultural level is seen as imperialism. Poverty to the point of famine is permanent in Africa.

The creation of educational institutions and accessible healthcare is part of probably every investment deal in large parts if Africa.

The question seems to be wether those deals are crafted with both parties on eye level or wether they are imposed by one party.

> We know people can sustainably live at much higher densities than Africans currently do.

Really? What are some places where people live sustainably at higher densities and at the same scale?

3 people sharing a sustainable farm doesn't count. You also have to account for the cities, which consume vastly more resources and produce vastly more waste.

Cities are almost always wildly more efficient on a per capita basis than rural regions due to economies of scale.

Yet, there are no sustainable cities. They still depend on vast supply chains that flow far outside their borders for resources and waste disposal.

Given the benefit payments offered in certain European countries, why should migration stop at all if you have open borders?

In Greece 86% and in Italy 80% in polls want fewer immigrants allowed into their countries. More than 50% in the United Kingdom and in France plus 47% in Spain agree. How do you deal with this, ignore these voices?

Africa has much less percentage of arable land than Europe or Asia:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.ARBL.ZS?type=sha...

The UN would suggest your numbers are correct but for Africa as a whole not just Sub-saharan africa https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_KeyFi...

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.

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.

Humanity is not natural apparently?

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.

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.

Humanity's existence is natural, but humanity's contemporary actions are—by definition—not natural. It is for this reason this very human word "natural" was invented: to distinguish some ("natural") activities from some ("artificial") human activities.

It is worth noting that the word natural is itself not "natural", the word is a human invention used to separate our own activities from others.

I think it depends on where you draw the line for the word "natural". If you include human behaviour, it is natural, but yes, otherwise it is typically known as "artificial selection" in this context.

Exactly my point.

I would draw the line differently, with artificial selection meaning intentional breeding activities.

Anything that's incidental to changes in the animal's environment, including increased predation or habitat destruction, would still count as natural selection. That includes cases where the predator is a particularly vicious species of great ape.

Yes, it is critical that we are pendantically correct in this matter. Alignment on the definition of natural selection is the only way to make sure we save the rest of the Rhinos.

> There's nothing natural about that.

What does natural mean then? It's not like they disappeared by some magical event or an asteroid falling on the face of the Earth.

Typically, "natural" means "not of human manufacture". That it's general meaning, and how it is meant in this case too.

That's not quite true. Natural selection is typically contrasted with artificial selection, in which individual traits are deliberately selected.

In the case of poaching, poachers are not intentionally trying to change the phenotype of the animal. They want to collect the horns/head/etc. The selection itself is an emergent side effect and, I would say, the natural result of a highly effective predator being introduced into the environment.

Natural selection is the process by which the traits that are most suited to surviving reality get passed down. That's all there is to it when you don't sugar-coat it

For so-called “traditional medicine”. Barbaric, yet zero sanctions, boycotts, or any economic consequences really. And once all the rhinos, tigers etc are gone and they can’t do it anymore, only then will they realize it never worked in the first place! :-(

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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...) Sadly, this seems to have not worked for the rhino.

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

Cell phone :-)

I saw a billboard in central North Carolina which read "I am not medicine" or similar, with a sad-looking rhino closeup photo in the background.

Two thoughts on this: 1) Isn't this billboard in the wrong continent and language? North Americans in central NC are not the ones killing and consuming these endangered animals.

2) (cynically) Billboards are expensive. There must be money to be made in this misery. I guess we are ripe for knee-jerk guilt-trips and the donations that follow.

It disgusts me.

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.)

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.

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?

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

Is cloning an option?

They will attempt to use IVF resurrect the species ..

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/20/last-mal...

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

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

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

Yes. Nature is not static. If your goal is a static status quo, that will still require human intervention.

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

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.

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.

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

Do you understand how useless humans are?

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