Last male northern white rhino 'Sudan' dies on Kenya reserve
Source: Sky News
The last male northern white rhino has died in Kenya, keepers have confirmed.
The 45-year-old animal died from "age-related complications", leaving only two females of his subspecies alive.
In a statement, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya said the rhino, called Sudan, was put down after his condition "worsened significantly" and he was unable to stand.
Scientists have gathered his genetic material and are working on developing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) to save his subspecies.
Read more: https://news.sky.com/story/last-male-northern-white-rhino-sudan-dies-on-kenya-reserve-11297630
If in-vitro doesn't work that's the end of the species.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
milestogo
(16,829 posts)that he didn't get to kill it.
Maxheader
(4,371 posts)Watched a program about Sudan...his caretaker will be devastated.
Che would be devastated.
Silver1
(721 posts)That's an amazing picture in the article.
"Scientists have gathered his genetic material and are working on developing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) to save his subspecies."
I so hope this will work and bring them back.
During the show they were trying to make that work
but just couldn't get the eggs to develop. But...they
are still trying..
Silver1
(721 posts)They just can't make it work. It's as if the animals know the environment is hostile, and the embryos won't develop. I find this frightening. It's like Nature, or Gaia, is just saying NO to us. Fix it or no go.
Yupster
(14,308 posts)The humans will keep coming into Europe, but where can the animals go?
Silver1
(721 posts)... to maintain equilibrium on the planet. It can be done though and there are efforts being made but the movement is so slow. No profit in it so not much interest. Blind stupidity.
Yupster
(14,308 posts)That number is projected to double by 2050. That's not that long from now.
There's no way to manage an extra 1.3 billion people in Africa. Europe thinks they are having a wave of refugees from Africa, but this is the first few drips of a huge wave coming.
That will be a disaster for the people, but what of the animals. There's no room for them.
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,500 posts)
Pachamama
(16,886 posts)
This is the canary in the coal mine.....
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)that extinctions occurred thru the ages, right? This, thru inconceivable ages before there was even a hint of a hominid to muck things up. Someday, aliens might visit this curiously colored rock and draw a timeline for life on it.
"Hmmmmmmm.... There was this long, long "winter" due to volcanic activity - then a wandering asteroid whacked the planet into another wipe-out of life - ut! Make that two assaults by asteroids. But the last one was caused by one species gaining dominance over all the others - without realizing they were bringing about their own demise in doing so. Once again, proof that intelligence is what you make of it."
However nostalgic we wax about the disappearing creatures, the fact is that extinction is an integral part of evolution. We humans may well enable such, but we're not able to impede it to any significant degree. That may sound fatalistic, but truth isn't always pretty.
packman
(16,296 posts)as they were being hunted into extinction may want to argue that "we're not able to impede it to any significant degree". Hell, even the great American buffalo was on the brink of extinction until we were able to impede its extinction.
I want us to wax about disappearing creatures- the tigers and rhinos and the bees - for the truth is, it isn't pretty when either by gun or by other means we lessen our quality of life on this planet. It's one thing for volcanos or asteroids to wipe out species, it is another thing for man to wipe out species. Sorry you had to somehow equate those two.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)the notion that we're something smarter or worthier than a wandering asteroid. Our arising from what was left of the last great extinction event is just an act of chance - not destiny. Imagine yourself observing from some celestial perch as a pride of lions hunts down and devours the last hominids that were skittering amongst the grasses of some savanna? Would you utter some extraterrestrial "Aw Geez!" with the realization that the seemingly crafty hind leg walkers were upstaged by the carnivores?
I'd like to believe that there'll be a pleasurable place for me to spend eternity once my time's up here. Trouble is, I doubt I've lived THIS life in a way that would warrant me shifting to a new one. Your fantasies may vary.
packman
(16,296 posts)than a dumb, mute space rock or bubbling, super heated river of molten rock. We invented guns and pesticides and are capable of changing climate on a global scale. THAT is the difference. Theology and heaven or hell be damned. My critic has nothing to do with one's concept of eternity. It has to do with man possessing the knowledge, yet the ignorance, to destroy species. I do not live in a fantasy, I live in a world where I cut the plastic rings that hold my 6-pack together because I saw a dead sea turtle with its head strangled in such a ring. I use household insecticides because I read what DDT did to bird egg shells. I threw away my gun because my boy shot an owl. I put off cutting down a dead tree because of a bird's nest in it - that is my reality.
In other words, there is extinction by causes beyond our control and there is extinction we have a say in.
As for the lions and the last hominids, I would probably be rooting for the lions.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)The realistic me asks - for every person that bothers to stop - get out some scissors - clip the plastic rings to save turtles and birds and other sea-dwellers - how many do not?
My money's on the lions too. We're (and that includes US) turning this orb into a shithole outpost. I'm selfishly glad I'm in my 70s now.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)What absurdity would compel anyone to think DUers are unaware of earlier extinction level events?
And what even greater absurdity would lead someone to make the moral equivalence between an extinction wholly man-made and one that is natural?
A truth is often, as you say, not pretty. A truth may also be entirely irrelevant to the point at hand. We call the latter 'petulance.'
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)As I see it, there's maybe a chance that the cataclysm we'll incite will prove to be more horrific than a "natural" one. Or do nuclear weapons just sprout from the depths like crystals do?
MrsMatt
(1,660 posts)at parties.
Pretty condescending attitude.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)not entertainment.
Kashkakat v.2.0
(1,752 posts)of the dinosaurs and human caused? Extinct species could care less whether they are extinct or not - its about what kind of world we humans want to live in.
NickB79
(19,233 posts)This was an entirely unnatural extinction event, one that is now playing out on a global scale daily due to human activity. We're not talking about a species that was about to check out whether or not humans intervened; we're talking about one we actively hunted to extinction.
The saddest thing about this whole thing is that, while large animals like this get a lot of publicity when they go, we're currently losing thousands of small, inconspicuous species every year, some of which will disappear before we can even catalog them to know they exist in the first place. And these plants and animals, while small, are the glue that holds together the ecosystems that allow larger animals like rhinos (or humans) to survive on this planet in the first place.
By 2050, my daughter will be 40 years old. If she has children of her own, I fully expect they'll marvel at pictures of elephants, whales, giraffes and rhinos in books the same way we currently marvel at pictures of woolly mammoths and saber-tooth cats: extinct megafauna that couldn't survive humanity's onslaught.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)"this" being the truth. If these creatures are SO important to OUR well-being, why aren't we deploying forces to protect them? We can blow others of our kind to smithereens and eliminate ecosystems and the life forms they support in the interests of having access to oil and mineral deposits. How much would a few of our soldiers cost against the loss of life forms we find interesting? Heh - go try and shoot a steer on the justification you're hungry and see what the ultimate cost of your poaching winds up being. There's probably greater protection for range cattle than there is for these lingering few wild animals like Rhinos and songbirds and moths and such that you've likely never heard of.
If you're a champion of these animals, it seems stupid to kill them. If you're hungry, you're family's hungry and destitute, getting a Rhino horn is akin to hitting a lottery jackpot. I'm not saying it's justified to wipe them out - I'm simply stating the raw truths of the situation. That we humans are HERE to make these choices is a matter of evolution - which we can't impede. We might think we can hold things in stasis, but it's impossible. We're just another cog in the Cosmos.
I like to ask about a situation that I have to deal with all the time: Pocket Gophers. I'm continually at war with these critters because they like to raid gardens and destroy trees - all from underground. There's poisoned baits, all kinds of traps and some folks even use guns if they're patient enough to sit and see their little heads pop up. It's too damned bad they aren't good to eat or make fur garments from! I'd have one helluva easier time trying to keep them in check - I'd likely have to take action against gopher poachers.
Sure, it's sad that we can't hold onto what we've got. On the other hand, how lucky are WE that those asteroids or Volcanoes didn't have a conscience??? There'd still be tropical rain forests at the poles and T-rexes and all that sorta stuff.
Kashkakat v.2.0
(1,752 posts)but youre all over the place - what exactly are you saying? We shouldnt try to preserve animals/ecosystems, shouldnt grieve when our world gets a little more boring and a little less diverse and interesting?
We are not talking about an asteroid - apples/oranges. Human caused events could conceivably have a human-caused solution.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)You can do all those emergency brake measures you mentioned, but they will ultimately fail. The very same perceptive being that you hope will come to it's senses and make our planet into a well-managed zoo - that's the same being that has spent it's tenure devising superior methods for killing whatever gives them pleasure or power - beings of their own race or others. Tell me how you'd stop the slaughter and defacing. Tell me how an objective archeologist of the future could sift thru what's left and discern that there was a discernible difference between innocently dead and intentionally dead.
Other dispatchers here think that we should all grieve and woe about cutesy creatures from kids books while they give scant notice to the giant stick insect that was down to 14 specimens before some bug-lovers stepped in and started a breeding program. I think they're up to a couple hundred of them now. Other less cuddly things are going away with little notice or care. We think we can see into the future and we can't. We can speculate, but we can't just spin the steering wheel and opt for the better-looking path. I might be a bit more positive-sounding if we'd concluded that our current tree of life is the first such to flourish here..... but it's not. And so far, the score's not good for specific life forms here. I simply don't see humans as conservators of life - do you?
I'd be willing to bet that Xi or Kim Jung Un use some of these "snake oil" cures. Imagine if they're told : "This powdered horn is from one of the LAST male White rhinos!" Can't you just see their eyes light up as they ask: So, how much more is it going to cost me? That's where "humanity" is. That's where the fate of "endangered species" is. We're one of the endangered species and it's our own fault. Ask yourself: Is up, down? Is black, white? Remember, they gave St Obama a Nobel Peace Prize. Fortunately (for Obama), they gave it to him early on.
Kashkakat v.2.0
(1,752 posts)Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)I should better spend my time focusing on getting Dems in office. Never mind the looming climate debacle that we can easily reverse once we have all three branches!
NickB79
(19,233 posts)This will at least preserve some of the genes of the northern subspecies in a living population and, if rhinos survive the current 6th Mass Extinction Event humanity has kicked off (kinda doubtful, but still), they may re-speciate again into separate subspecies a few hundred thousand years from now.
Something similar is currently happening with polar bears; they are cross-breeding with grizzly bears as grizzlies move north and polar bears lose habitat due to shrinking sea ice. The result is a "groler bear", a fertile hybrid that can then breed with other grizzlies and spread the polar bear genes. If grizzlies don't go extinct as well, a new species of polar bear may once again roam the Arctic in a few hundred thousand years, after the CO2 in the atmosphere has been re-sequestered and the planet's temperature has come back down again to allow sea ice to exist.