The end of the line for the Northern White Rhino

backspin. wrote: »

Stupid Chinese and their silly potions. And they aren't done yet. Elephant tusks, lion and tiger bones. Pretty much any of the majestic animals are under threat. So sad and so pointless.

If you ever want to have the crack with US customs officials use one of the border crossing into Alaska.
Once upon a time I got brought into a US border post on the Alaskan border and I got to play a guessing game with the some of the confiscated stuff that has been sent to them from the major airports and ports of the lower 48.
I was shown what I thought was an elephant tusk that some eejit tried to smuggle through San Fran airport in a suitcase but it turned out to be a Walrus tusk.
Another thing that looked like a snake skin turned out to be a leopard penis.

It was an eye opener as to how much stuff they do find and that is probably just a tiny portion of it.

facehugger99 wrote: »

Apparently the main reason they were chosen by the WWF as their symbol was to save on printing costs as they were black and white.

I thought it was because they looked cute.
Although they never show the males rubbing their ar**es up on bamboo trees to mark their territory.

A bit like they never showed the "cute" young elephant male trying to ride a poor rhino calf because he was so horny.

I heard Michael Flatley is devastated, he needed one more to complete the set of horns in his gaff.

Sand wrote: »

I'm unclear on why anyone cares. Animals go extinct every day. Its how evolution works. The weak who fail to reproduce perish, the strong who do inherit the earth. The world is still turning without the white rhino.

We are making the extinction rates abnormal. We are going to lose some majestic animals because we seem to think 10, 15, 20 billion people is sustainable. We need to cop the f**k on and protect some of the planets beauty. Or maybe it's more important to have 5 billion Chinese and 3 billion Africans and 4 billion Indians.

manonboard wrote: »

The rate of the extinctions in the last few decades, is extremely high. It's nothing like a 'natural' rate as seen in all of our previous history bar major extinction events.

Many people love animals being alive in the world. That is why we care.

There will be other animals alive in the world, they just wont be the white rhino.