Baby Rhinos, Bitter Tears

The best adjective I can use on the southern white rhino's personality is "doglike." These animals wanted some love from us. We were happy to oblige.

They are warm, solid animals. Even the horn, which is made from fused hair, is warm. Everything about them is warm--their hearts and their soft-concrete skin. And inside the folds of their skin it is soft as silk.

The rhino's horn has long been thought in Asia to have medicinal properties; powdered down, it was the Viagra of the early 20th century. In addition, ceremonial sword hilts, much in demand in the Middle East, were carved from rhino horn (mostly that of black rhinos). In South Africa, southern white rhinos have been terribly persecuted by farmers and trophy hunters. They very nearly vanished by the beginning of the 20th century--down to less than 200 animals. 

The Wilds' beautiful bull rhino. Think what his horn is worth to heartless mercenaries. $65,000.00 per kilo is the current going rate.

Concerted efforts to breed them in captivity and protect the remaining animals (anyone else remember the National Geographic photos of rhinos, each with its own personal armed guard?) allowed them to rebound. The world population peaked around 20,000, 80% of which live in South Africa. There are now more individual southern whites than there are individuals of all other rhino species combined. But the game has abruptly changed, and we may never see that peak again.

Poachers still take them, now at a rate of

  ONE RHINO EVERY DAY

 despite the fact that almost all extant rhinos live in protected parks and game reserves. Living in a park does you no good when poachers are about. Rhino poaching is escalating at a horrifying rate in South Africa, the last stronghold for the southern white rhino.

This site  has detailed information on the increased demand for medicinally worthless powdered rhino horn in Asian markets, which is leading to a huge spike in rhino deaths. Three hundred thirty-three rhinos were slaughtered in 2010. This sickening number went up again in 2011. Despite the presence of 500 wardens in South Africa's Kruger National Park,  over half of the 448 rhinos killed were in the park. Already in January 2012, poachers have brutally slaughtered eleven animals, putting 2012 on track to be the worst year for rhinos ever in South Africa. I have seen rhinos browsing happily in Kruger Park, when poaching was a distant and unwelcome memory, and knowing this is happening again makes my stomach turn over.

In addition to the slaughter of white rhinos, 19 critically endangered black rhinos were killed in 2011, eight in Kruger Park alone. Poachers use high powered rifles and veterinary tranquilizers to dart rhinos before hacking off their horns. I watched a video of a rhino who woke up without his face, and that image will stay with me for life.

If you have ever laid a hand on a rhinoceros' kind head, scratching him around the ears and his big weepy eyes, knowing this should make you weep. Perhaps it does anyway. Is there no end to human greed and selfishness? Is there no end to the gullibility of people who believe in folkloric cures that must, oddly enough, be made from endangered species' odd parts, like tiger penises and rhino horns? (The more expensive it is, the better it must be!) The fable du jour driving this obscene slaughter is that powdered rhino horn (news flash!!) now not only enhances male potency but also cures cancer. So let's wipe out the rhinoceros, just eating their hair.  

I'm sorry. I am crying and spitting bullets at the same time, and that's not a good thing. But there is more to life than pecking at a computer, enjoying cute and cuddly animals. There is seeing that they survive into tomorrow.

If you would like to help:

See the International Rhino Foundation web site, which is working directly with South African authorities to supply antipoaching patrols with the funds and manpower they must have to make a difference.

This is Anan, a southern white rhino. This photo was taken a couple of years ago at The Wilds. In the interim, she's grown up into one of the adorable yearlings pictured above. 

May she live to see a world where people have finally realized that her hair is not medicine. Where she will be treasured, alive and running around on her spring-loaded feet, for the priceless gift she is.

Extreme Rhino Love

January 14, 2012 was the Ohio Ornithological Society's annual Winter Raptor Extravaganza at The Wilds, a 10,000 acre conservation breeding and research facility about an hour north of us near Caldwell, Ohio. It's the largest such facility in the world. Here. In Appalachian Ohio.  Breeding southern white rhinos better than anybody else. Can you hear my buttons busting?

Baby charges!! Eek!! The crowd scatters!

One of the supercool things The Wilds' staff does when we come to bird there is to let us into the rhino barn, where these tropical animals spend cold winter days. (They let them out to gallop around on mild days).

Lovely Tricia West gets her hands on a southern white rhino. Everyone was transformed by the nearness of these incredibly gentle and kind animals. Such smiles lit up the barn!

Some people commented on the smell, a horsy odor with strong notes of pig.

Some people never took their fingers off their pinched noses. But she loved every minute, anyway.

And one person (and I ain't sayin' who) got right down there and scored three wet rhinokisses. Real kisses, right on the soft muzzle. While other people kept their noses pinched. That person, the one who got the kisses, also did not shower until the next afternoon. Because she actually likes the scent of rhino in her hair. Please note the wet elbow of the parka, courtesy a couple of mouthy Asian one-horned rhinos. 

The January visit is perfectly timed for rhinobabehs. This year, there were THREE. 

A more winsome little animal would be hard to find, with its big swivelly aardvark ears, its gentle eyes and its rubbery padded feet. 

Rhinobabies are quite frisky and easily excited. They bog their heads and suddenly wheel around to run! And then they come back to be loved on again. My babehs were in love

immediately. They leapt at the chance to come back to bird The Wilds and commune with rhinos once again.

We got to see a baby southern white rhino stop running around long enough to nurse.

Let's zoom in on that sweetness. Yes, they're mammals underneath all that armor, with a nice little udder and the sweetest mouths.

The bond between mother an baby is profound. This mama was a little jealous of her baby...she wanted all the attention herself! She kept holding the baby back with her horn, then hurrying up to be petted.

She knew she'd been upstaged. Oh, I know the feeling!

My wonderful partner in Science Club, Mrs. Hendrix. She shows the kids new and wonderful things every Wednesday afternoon. Every bit as big an animal freak as The Science Chimp. We both would like to work full-time in the rhino barn.

This yearling was a little babe last year, and obviously remembered being petted by many birders at once. It wanted more.

More, more, more said the baby.

One of this year's new calves flopped down and presented its belly to Daniel, who was only too happy to give it a rubdown.

Mrs. Hendrix loves rhinos almost best of all. She would like to work here. Instead she is one of Liam's most awesome teachers, something we are very happy about.

Daniel came and got us and Liam and I moved in on his cuddly rhino babeh action.

Really, it was all we could do not to crawl right through the steel bars. Wherever you are, happy Valentine's Day!

Rhinos-Learning by Seeing

I devoured the rhinos with my eyes and camera. I was like a blind person, wanting to feel them all over, to try to figure out what I had in front of me.

A rare look at the udder of a female, lounging briefly on her side. She wasn't nursing.

This one was.

Sun through the sparse hairs of a rhino tail.

A moment of repose, resting a head so heavy. I wonder if they wish they were impala sometimes.

The great folds of skin and fat, the scooped hollow ear. All warm and soft where things have to bend and move; armored and hard where they don't. But warm all over, like sun-heated concrete.

So much bone in that massive head, protecting the brain. The horn, for defense, surely, but also to part the thorn scrub where they live, to let them through.

Rhinos are huge, powerful, but with almost unimaginable gentleness for a beast so weighty. I still marvel that they can be trusted with our eggshell skulls and frail hands, but they just seem to know that we are breakable. 

Would that we had been so considerate of them.

The rhino's horn, which is made of fused hair, has long been thought to have medicinal properties; powdered down, it was the Viagra of the early 20th century. In addition, ceremonial sword hilts, much in demand in the Middle East, were carved from rhino horn (mostly that of black rhinos). In South Africa, southern white rhinos have been terribly persecuted by farmers and trophy hunters. They very nearly vanished by the beginning of the 20th century--down to less than 200 animals. 

Concerted efforts to breed them in captivity and protect the remaining animals (anyone else remember the National Geographic photos of rhinos, each with its own personal armed guard?) allowed them to rebound. The world population now stands around 14,530. There are now more individual southern whites than there are individuals of all other rhino species combined.

Poachers still take them, and almost all of them live in South Africa in parks and game reserves. They're vulnerable, any way you look at it. 

I enjoyed seeing them in the wild in 1994. At Hluhluwe Reserve in South Africa, I remember seeing a huge female with a very long, thin horn. "That's The Witch," my guide, Peter Lawson, told us. "She's infamous for damaging vehicles." And indeed, this female ambled toward our vehicle, intending to scratch her huge bottom on its side, thoroughly scratching its paint and denting it. Peter sped out of the way.

I loved knowing that she could do whatever she wanted, ambling up to unsuspecting drivers, charming them with her proximity, then wrecking their paint jobs. And there wasn't a darn thing they could do about it, either. The Witch was Endangered, and she seemed to know it.

Smile for the camera, sweet rhino boy.

Now a nice profile. 

I don't need to tell you to be gentle with my babies. You know how to do that.