LAST Thursday was another of those United Nations’ sponsored days – World Rhino Day.
I’m not sure how much these days achieve, but I suppose they serve the purpose of drawing attention to the fate of the world’s wildlife. A few facts about rhinos: in 1900 there were about 500,000 rhinos across Africa and Asia, by 1970 that figure had been reduced to about 70,000, and today it is a depressing 29,000. The WWF-SA (World Wide Fund for Nature – South Africa) puts the African populations today as 20,000 white and 4,800 black rhinos.
The dramatic decline in populations is due to poaching for rhino horn, which is much prized in Asian traditional medicine, for example, 1,338 rhinos were poached in South Africa last year alone.
Pic: https://blog.mydreamcourse.co.za/
It is indeed a depressing situation, but it’s not all bad news. A report from Indonesia says that there has been a sighting of the extremely rare Sumatran rhino on Kalimantan, the Indonesian side of the island of Borneo, for the first time in 40 years. The rhino, a female, has been captured by conservationists and is to be moved to a new sanctuary where it is hoped that in time a breeding programme can be started. There are fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinos left in the wild due to, again, poaching and habitat loss.*
There are five species of rhino — apart from Africa’s white and black rhinos, there are three species in Asia, the Indian rhino, which is endangered, and the Javan and Sumatran rhinos, both critically endangered.**
With that dreadful earthquake in Italy last month still fresh in our minds, it would seem that it’s not only man-made climate change that is affecting nature, oil and natural gas mining operations are as well. Earthquakes in the American state of Oklahoma were once rare, but not any more. According to geologists such large-scale operations, specifically the use and abuse of vast quantities of ground water are causing increased seismic activity, in fact Oklahoma is now having regular earthquakes registering 3 points or more on a 10-point scale. Seismic activity in the state has increased 40-fold in recent years as a direct result of oil and gas mining.***
And finally, a word about petitions, they can and often do work really well.
Stock photo of domestic pigs. (Wikipedia)
Locals at a country fair in the American state of Indiana were paying $30 to have a go at catching a pig in a mud bath. Other locals, animal lovers, signed a petition and the pig wrestling has been stopped.**** Unconfirmed reports say the would-be wrestlers are now being made to pay $30 to watch a TV debate between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton instead, just to keep them in the mood.
By the way, did you know that that is the supposed origin of the term, ‘bringing home the bacon’? Pig wrestling was a feature of country fairs in medieval England, the difference being that the local yokel who caught the pig could keep it. Hence, bringing home the bacon, cheers!
*The Week: The Best of the British and Foreign Media. **The New Encyclopedia of Mammals, Oxford University Press, 2001. ***Scientific American magazine. ****Care2Causes.
