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There are three northern white rhinoceroses left. The last male of this subspecies lives in Kenya and is already quite old for his kind of animal. He is ailing now.
But recently, a secondary and much deeper infection was discovered beneath the initial one and Sudan was taking longer to recover, "despite the best efforts of his team of vets who are giving him 24-hour care", the organisation said.
There are two other white rhinos left in the world – a female named Najin and daughter Fatu, both also living at the conservancy in Kenya. Health problems or their ages – around 28 and 17, respectively – have left them unable to reproduce.
Wildlife experts and conservationists expressed deep regret over the prospect of the northern white rhino completely dying out. Technically, the species is already classified as extinct because it no longer exists in the wild, conservationists said.
The last few there and elsewhere have been protected 24/7 by heavily armed guard to try to slow down poaching. However, poaching and the other underlying reasons for the impending extinction are unlikely to be solved within the next few decades.
Sources:
Last male northern white rhino Sudan falls ill as species edges closer to extinction. South China Morning Post
The world's last male northern white rhino is on death watch. CNN
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday March 05 2018, @12:12AM (11 children)
There's not much hope for humanity when people still believe that grinding up the horn of one of these animals and eating it will heal them or make them strong. If it wasn't so miserably tragic it would probably be funny.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @12:23AM (5 children)
Still more believeable a fable than magical zombie carpenters from the sky.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday March 05 2018, @12:36AM (4 children)
On the plus side, the zombie carpenter had useful advice about being nice to people, instead of a scam to profit from the slaughter of rare species for a small and ultimately useless component part.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @02:01AM (1 child)
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @11:11PM
Uh, context. He was saying he would return, not to bring peace between good and evil, but to bring a sword to cut/separate good and evil. Did you know that Satan has a knack for using words to trick weak-minded humans? Just sayin'...
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by LoRdTAW on Monday March 05 2018, @02:43AM
*IF* Christ himself wasn't a scam artist or another level of scamming on top of that which turned into the greatest organized scam of all time. If you think about the grandiose stories of christ's miracles such as walking on water, spitting into dirt making mud from said spit and rubbing it onto a blind mans eyes which instantly restored his sight, touching and healing lepers, water to wine and a bunch of other crap I probably tuned out in catholic school; I'ts likely they were completely fabricated by the authors supposedly about 20 years after christ died when they decided to write the damn thing.
My little theory is that christ was a sort of david koresh / l. ron hubbard type who was a regular joe who realized he was a better grifter than carpenter and switched to preaching about being the son of god to gain their following (jews. am I right, Eth? I kid. anyway...). Then there are the stories of miracles but who's to say that the apostles weren't his inner circle of henchmen who pulled off all the stunts in the background. Take the water to wine miracle for example. Who's to say that after the jugs were placed outside, unobserved, a couple of apostles jumped the fence/wall/whatever, swapped the water for wine (probably stolen) and voila! Miracle! The more "miracles" he pulls off the more convincing he is to the dumber populace, hence why he hung out with a lot of poor people and ne'er-do-wells; they're gullible and desperate. I'm sure he got's lots of free pussy from said whores for blessings and whatnot while he tried to figure out his next move was. I'm sure he also pissed off a lot of people along the way, especially the political and religious elders who don't like people going around claiming to be the son of god and king of the jews. So he had to keep moving around which is why all of his dumb miracles are in different cities and towns. He was either smart and didn't stick around too long until someone caught on or he was ran out of town after he was caught. Either way, he kept pissing a lot of people off his his shenanigans until it got all the way to the top, pontius pilate, the prefect who is like a governor in the USA. He saw christ as a real trouble maker and threat to local order so he did what I can only say is the "sane" thing for his time, get rid of the bastard and make sure everyone, including his little pack of stooges, not to fuck around like that. EVER.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @06:01PM
Do I still count as Christian if I doubt that Christ is God, but still think his ideas of putting people before religious rules and treating them well are good ideals?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @12:54AM (1 child)
I've gotten better results with kaiju bone powder anyway.
(Score: 3, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Monday March 05 2018, @02:58AM
I've grown fond of human horn.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday March 05 2018, @12:54PM
Oh its not so bad; the dumb part was stacking cash on one side and wagging fingers and expecting for the first time in human history prohibition will work.
There are two "right" ways to do it.
Have the conservationists run the whole racket themselves and they get the profits for conservation purposes (If we did this, we'd probably have herds of northern white rhino bigger than cow herds roaming around in Africa, because people like money and the same people growing the herds are getting all the cash, instead of all the cash going to poachers). If its gonna happen, the government can NOT decide to stop it, but they can allocate the profits, and they really screwed up.
The other "right" way to stop it is find something the Chinese won't eat (well, in theory... good luck with this) and flood the market with fake rhino horn thats actually ground up tibet dirt or whatever if anything repulses the Chinese. Repeat for any other horn eating group. Or really F with them by putting viagra in the made up rhino horn mix. Refuse to have the local equiv of the FDA do any quality control either. I'm just saying... you can go to all the effort of going to Africa to get horns but if the market is beyond flooded with capsules of literal grass clippings then the market will die and nobody in the market can afford to go to Africa because they're too busy chasing microscopic margins on stuffing grass clippings into capsules. See the American supplement market and various chemical and DNA analysis over the years. You can't stop people from smoking tobacco or poaching rhino horns, but the war on cigarettes shows that its quite possible to destroy demand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @04:51PM (1 child)
Now we can laugh at all the tiny, limp chinese dicks. They ain't gonna be getting hard any more. Hahahahah!
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Monday March 05 2018, @11:53PM
It's common to euphemistically say that rhino horn is considered an 'aphrodisiac' in parts of the world. What we need to do is call a spade a spade.
Rhino horn is used to make boner pills. How pathetic.