Humans are perhaps the least qualified to speak of "loneliness" on this planet.
A few days ago, a topic on Weibo titled "There are only two northern white rhinos left on the earth" was released, which immediately caused 180 million Chinese people to be surprised, and the attention instantly jumped to the 7th position on the hot search list:
But this is no longer "news".
In fact, in 2018, with the death of the world's last male northern white rhino "Sultan", the entire northern white rhino family was left with only the current lone mother and daughter:
The reason why the media chose to "revert to the past" recently is because scientists have successfully bred three northern white rhino embryos through the latest genetic technology, and there seems to be a glimmer of hope for the continuation of the northern white rhino race...
In fact, including the northern white rhinoceros, almost all 5 surviving species of rhinos on the earth are facing extinction to varying degrees.
It just so happens that today (April 8) is the International Day for the Protection of Rare Animals, and Ashin takes the opportunity to tell the most complete and recorded brutal story of the continuous killing of rhinos in history spanning thousands of years.
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The Power of Life: China Wildlife Conservation Centennial ¥128 Purchase
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="73" >1, Africa-Northern White Rhinoceros</h1>
The northern white rhinoceros, a subspecies of the white rhinoceros, lives in Africa:
The reason why the population of the northern white rhinoceros has reached today's desperate situation is actually from the above picture, which can also be seen.
That's right, compared to the other four rhinos and their closest relative, the Southern White Rhinoceros, they have the largest rhino horns on their heads.
It is precisely because of this that they have attracted endless killing.
According to relevant records, some of their horns can grow up to 1.5 meters long.
David Attenborough, the father of natural history documentaries, recalled that in the 1950s, when he was young enough to start making documentaries, northern white rhinos were already rare, but there were still more than 2,000.
Illegal killings between the 1970s and 1980s reduced their number from 500 to 15. However, between the 1990s and 2003, the number recovered to 32.
Brent Steelton photographs a male black rhino that has been shot and cut off its horns in Hluhluwe-Inmfruze Park, South Africa
The silent cry under the lens Britta Yaszynski waited for CITIC Publishing House Books ¥64 to buy
After 2003, illegal hunting re-emerged, and their number in the wild plummeted to 5-10. In 2008, the northern white rhino was declared extinct in the wild, leaving only 8 northern white rhinos in captivity in the zoo.
Between 2007 and 2014, the number of rhinos stealing in South Africa increased from 13 to 1,215, a 9,300 percent increase. Image and data source: WWF
In 2018, with the death of the last male northern white rhino on Earth, there are currently only two female northern white rhinos left on the planet: the mother Nagin and the daughter Fatu.
In Africa, the final episode of the 2019 documentary Seven Worlds, One Planet, Grandpa David Attenborough caresses the northern white rhino mother and daughter.
Not far from where the two northern white rhinos live, there is a rhino cemetery where rhinos have been killed in recent years as a result of human poaching.
Old Master Attenborough read one tombstone after another, and said helplessly: How can it be it, oh my God, I once touched it quietly...
Without the hope of natural reproduction, the only way to save the northern white rhino can be assisted reproduction, that is, "IVF".
Humans who once pushed them off a cliff are now trying to drag them back. Saving endangered animals, in other words, is something we have to take responsibility for the extinction crisis we have created.
But only now, we have 5 northern white rhino embryos. These 5 hard-won hopes are currently cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen – they are still waiting for the embryo transfer technology to mature.
Currently, the two northern white rhinos enjoy 24/7 gun-to-gun protection.
As Richard Vigne, head of the O.Pégeta Nature Reserve, puts it, "We are still a long way from achieving this goal." ”
Because none of these technologies can be broken in a moment and a half.
At the end of last year, scientists in Kenya performed an egg retrieval | for northern white rhinos Rio the Photographer
However, even if surrogacy is successful, genetic diversity is still a major problem.
The mother and daughter of Nagin and Fatu were the daughters and granddaughters of the last male, the Northern White Rhinoceros Sultan, respectively, and the resulting cubs may be the product of a combination of close relatives, which may not be enough to continue to breed a stable population.
Scientists and the Northern White Rhinoceros are in a race against time. If the northern white rhino newborns in the laboratory can be born before Nagin and Fatu die, the baby rhinos can also follow them to learn ancestral survival skills and learn how to become a real northern white rhino.
But if all the efforts are to no avail, then when the two of them die, the northern white rhinoceros that has lived and bred for millions of years on this earth will disappear completely.
We will be the last generation of humans on the planet to witness this species.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="73" >2, Southeast Asia - Sumakh</h1>
The reason why African rhinos have caused disasters is actually due to the "butterfly effect" of Asian rhinos in part.
To figure out this story, Ah Xin still started with the Douban Gaozan documentary "Seven Worlds, One Planet" broadcast in 2019.
In the second episode, Asia, Grandpa David Attenborough introduces a cute creature that can gently rest your head between your knees, the Sumatran rhinoceros.
The Sumen rhinoceros is the most primitive and smallest of the extant rhinos and is very fond of singing.
In the documentary, their cries are full of love, but lack of response, appearing high-pitched and sad.
There are 3 subspecies of the Sumatran rhinoceros.
Among them, the most tragic fate is the northern subspecies. He has lived extensively in China, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia. Now, however, no more records of living northern subspecies have been found.
Chart: National Geographic
One of the reasons is that for thousands of years, traditional medicine in Arabia, China and Southeast Asia believes that rhino horn has a high medicinal value, and the "Compendium of Materia Medica" says: "It is better to enter the medicine only for rhinoceros", they can be used to clear heat and cool blood, aphrodisiac.
These traditions were unfortunately "passed down" into the 20th century, and in Vietnam, rhino horn became the secret recipe for treating cancer... Sumen Rhino ushered in the "last madness" of the era of globalization.
Rhino horn seized by Indonesian police in August 2017. Photographed by Ayat Karokaro.
Kerinci Seblat National Park on the west coast of Sumatra was once the greatest hope for Sumatran rhinos.
In 1990, scientists estimated that there were 500 Sumatran rhinos here. By 2004, however, it was officially declared extinct in the Sebra National Park of Grynch.
But the tragedy of the rhinoceros doesn't stop there. On November 23, 2019, shortly after the episode aired, bad news came that Iman, malaysia's last female Sumatran rhinoceros, had died, meaning the species was completely extinct in Malaysia.
Rhinos in the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary. Photo: Rhett A. Butler.
In the most pessimistic algorithms, there are currently only about 30 Sumatran rhinos left on Earth, but this is only an estimate, because the number of live animals found is much smaller than this number.
Unfortunately, due to rising sea levels, indonesia's new capital is located where the few 10 Sumen rhinos remain.
No matter what animal, if a population wants to exist, the number of individuals cannot be too small.
Once the number of individuals in the population is too small, it will enter a collapse spiral: the negative situation will be amplified, the entire population will lose the ability to resist adversity, and the number will fall rapidly in a spiral, inevitably heading for extinction.
For Sumatran rhinos, this threshold could be 15.
Scientists estimate that "as humanity wishes," the Sumatran rhino will become extinct in our lifetime.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="73" >3, the end of the story, back to China</h1>
To perfect the sad story of rhinos on this planet, of course, we can't do without our own perspective.
From the prosperity of the population to the extinction, Chinese historical texts can be said to be a complete witness to the fate of rhinos.
China was once the country with the most widespread distribution of rhinos on the earth, and according to archaeological excavations, there were as many as 30 kinds of rhinos living in China. Even in the era of civilization, China also lived in these three kinds of rhinoceros: the Indian rhinoceros, the Sumen rhinoceros, and the Javan rhinoceros.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Classic of Zhongshan says that "the min mountains are full of rhinoceros", and more than 3,000 years ago, they roamed on the vast North China Plain.
At that time, Beijingers were far more likely to see a wild rhinoceros than to see a wild elephant, but now, this scene can only stay in fantasy.
For example, since the Shang Dynasty, rhino hunting has frequently appeared in oracle bone inscriptions: in only one hunting activity of "burning forests and hunting", the Shang King captured 71 rhinos, which shows the common rhinoceros.
This is a piece of chronicle rib carved in the sixth year of Emperor Yi or Emperor Xin of the Shang Dynasty. On one side is inscribed with text that Di Xin rewarded the hunted rhinoceros with slaughter (below), while on the other side is engraved animal faces, cicada patterns and dragon patterns, and inlaid with turquoise (above).
But it was also from then on that rhinoceros spread across the northern boundary of China, receding at a rate of about 200 km south every 400 years or so.
According to relevant research, the reasons boil down to three main reasons.
First of all, rhinos were an important military resource in ancient China.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, conquests between princes were commonplace, and low-cost, durable and lightweight rhino skin was the best raw material for making armor. In the "Yue Language", it is said that "the one who sends the armor of the rhinoceros in the clothes of the present husband has three thousand."
Warring States, Hubei Zaoyang Chu tomb leather armor
Rhino skin is not only a military material, its bone glue is also a material for making bows and arrows, "Zhou Li" said: "rhinoceros glue yellow" for making arrows.
Secondly, rhinoceros and rhino horn became "tributes" and valuable medicinal herbs.
After the Warring States, rhinoceros skin armor was replaced by iron armor, rhinoceros was no longer military supplies, rhinoceros and rhino horns were included in the tribute as rare treasures.
Rhinoceros carved bamboo Reishi pattern cup - Palace Museum
Finally, there is the indirect pressure of population on rhino populations.
When population pressure exceeds a certain threshold, it burns mountains and forests, grassy land, reclaims hills and lakes, and occupies a large area of the natural habitat of rhinos. It permanently destroys the environment in which rhinos depend, forcing them to disappear in vast spaces.
Therefore, since the Tang Dynasty, it is almost impossible to see live rhinos in Mainland China. In this regard, the existing cultural relics in China are very illustrative.
For example, the Bronze Rhinoceros of the Western Han Dynasty in the Collection of the National Museum of China depicts the various details of the rhinoceros very realistically, vividly:
Judging from the relics unearthed in China, the rhinoceros image reflected in the cultural relics before the Han and Tang Dynasties is this Sumatran double-horned rhinoceros.
In the Tang Dynasty, the two large stone rhinoceros statues erected in front of the tomb of Gaozu Li Yuan were also quite realistic:
Since then, the realistic image of the rhinoceros has rarely appeared in the works of art in our country. In the nearly 400 years since the Yuan Dynasty, the number of rhino horns in China's local tribute has declined off a cliff:
An estimate of the situation of the horns of the shanggong in southern Yunnan at different times
After the late 18th century, there is no record of "rhinoceros" or "rhino horn" in the tribute, which has become "the best song of the tribute of the Heavenly Dynasty".
According to Professor Wang Yingxiang, a veterinary expert at the Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the last three rhinos in southern Yunnan were killed in Tengchong from 1948 to 1949, Menghai in 1950 and Jiangcheng in 1959.
Rhinos have since withdrawn from the stage of Chinese history.
Rhinoceros, witnessing too much greed and arrogance in humans.
Environmental degradation, habitat loss, wanton killing... The dilemma faced by animals is also an ecological test that humans need to answer.
All disregard for other life will eventually be directed at humans themselves, who are also busy sawing off the branch they inhabit as they push other species to extinction.
Don't wait for the rarity to know how to cherish.