The Safari Park's most recent eastern black rhino calf, Eric. There are only about 700 eastern black rhinos left in the wild.
In response to a recent article published by msnbc.com declaring the extinction of the western black rhino, Safari Park Curator of Mammals Randy Rieches had this to say:
“This is such incredibly horrible news. Within the last couple months we have seen the last Javan rhino in Vietnam poached, the western black rhino declared extinct, and numerous rhinos of all taxa in Africa and Asia poached for their horns, which are now being sold on the black market for up to $100,000 a kilo.
We thought that last year was such a horrendous year for rhinos being poached in Africa and Asia that it couldn’t get any worse. Unfortunately, we now see that the numbers continue to escalate higher in 2011.
There is no end in site to the carnage wreaked upon this magnificent family. As a conservationist, the term ‘never give up, never surrender’ has never carried more meaning.”
I second Randy’s sentiments, and if you’re reading this blog post you probably do, too. We can’t let human greed win this time. Help us spread the word about the dire plight of rhinos. Like, tweet, share, and re-share this blog post with your friends. Only through increased awareness can we inspire compassion and drive action to save rhinos. Unless we want to lose this incredible animal forever, we have to follow Randy’s advice: “never give up, never surrender.”
Matt Steele is the social media planner for San Diego Zoo Global. Read his previous post, Get Invited to Festival of Flight Tweet-up.
Not that unexpected, yet so sad. I know of too many people who won’t visit (and thereby support) the San Diego Safari park because of their feeling about any animals kept in captivity. They are naive when it comes to awareness of how these species get treated in too many corners of the world. For some species institutions like the Safari Park may offer their last great hope for survival.
I so agree with you Arthur. If we only had some Western Black Rhino’s is captivity there might have been the smallest chance of saving them. I checked with SDZ Global but they confirmed that there are none in captivity. People have got to stop thinking of only themselves.
Absolutely. The animals are treated very well in the prestigious zoos, the environment is meticulously tweaked to mimic their natural habitat and this is actually an example of stewardship
Reading that article broke my heart. We humans have a lot to answer for. There are far too many of us on this planet and at the expense of all the other wonderful species that we share/shared the planet with.
This is so unbelievably sad. Human beings are so awful. Luckily we too will become extinct one day, and hopefully the creatures who will remain, evolve, and survive will be better to one another and to all other living things than we have been.