Rhinoceros as Inspiration
As the last northern white rhinoceros male, Sudan has become the ambassador of all creatures facing extinction.
1973 - 2018
Homage to Sudan:
Once the World’s Most Eligible Bachelor
Sudan, the last male northern white rhinoceros, now deceased, took the world by storm. In 2017, Tinder named him the World’s Most Eligible Bachelor as part of a fundraising effort to stop the extinction of his species. At that time, there were only four northern white rhinos left on the planet.
Each swipe on Tinder’s dating app garnered donations for the decades-long captive breeding effort to save the northern white rhinoceros from extinction at Ol Pejeta Conservancy at Laikepia, Kenya.
The dating app crashed as the story of the northern white rhino’s inevitable extinction captured our hearts. Although science may give us some answers, it may be too late to save the northern white rhino.
Sudan became my tutor and inspiration. His plight inspired the following poem and the poem steamrolled into an entire poetry manuscript called Farewell, Sudan. The manuscript documents my personal response to all aspects of global warming.
Today, only two female northern white rhinos remain on the planet, and captive breeding experiments to save the species are running out of time. Multiple Herculean efforts to breed Najin and Fatu have ended in failure. The captive breeding projects have yet to produce an heir. Scientists have been working on captive breeding of the northern white rhino since the 1980’s.
One day, we may say farewell to a species that has wandered the planet since the Cretaceous Period.
Northern white rhinos will exist only in our imaginations. They will be absent from our lives and the lives of future generations. We are all witnesses to their extinction.
When Sudan was named the World’s Most Eligible Bachelor, his plight hit me like a lightning bolt or a fatal arrow through my heart. I made a personal, one-on-one connection with an individual from a species with a short shelf life.
The idea of extinction was no longer an abstraction.
Northern white rhinos were particular individual animals I love and mourning their extinction will most certainly be in my future. This is despite the efforts of many people who wish to save northern white rhinos.
Sudan has become an ambassador for all species facing extinction because his death became an international sensation. He was an individual animal. Not a herd. Not a census documenting the demise of a particular species. Not data on a chart. Not part of the unfathomable Sixth Extinction, a concept hard to digest.
Through Sudan’s story, many experienced the gravity of losing even one species.
How can poets do anything for the many species facing extinction? What part can poets take to prevent this occurrence?
Poets connect with the world in a unique way. We speak directly into the hearts of our audiences.
Just like scientists use their skills to fight extinction and other aspects of global warming, poets need to use their skills to engage the public by writing poems to manifest the great loss before us. Maybe our poems may inspire people to make the changes needed to reverse the toll global warming is taking on planet Earth.
There is still time.
I urge poets to write environmental, nature and global warming poems. Poets need to use their skills to engage in literary activism. Disperse your poems in every manner possible: in print, at readings and social events, in emails to elected officials and best friends, on your social media, at family gatherings, on posters for coffee shop bulletin boards.
Such poems are urgently needed to amplify the collective loss facing all of us if we fail to act.
At Sudan’s Grave Site
Ol Pejeta Conservancy
Laikepia, Kenya
The gravesite of Sudan, the last northern white rhinoceros male.
1973 - 2018
I made a split second decision. Artist and activist Karen Canino, a fierce lover of Kenya with deep connections from her extensive travel to the country, invited me to go on her next trip, which included visiting Ol Pejeta Conservancy known for its large population of rhinos and the home to to the last northern white rhinos on the planet. She shared a postcard of Sudan, along with the itinerary and left me with a guidebook to Kenya. I read her my poem, Farewell, Sudan. It took me only several minutes to say yes.
I saw my first rhino in the wild at Ol Pejeta. Right by the side of the road, and I really mean right by the side of the road, a large, black rhinoceros was sleeping soundly like a house cat under a huge acacia tree. As our vehicle slowed down and we stopped to watch, the rhino never stirred. I could see its chest moving up and down from its breathing.
I have never seen anything more beautiful in my life. I did not see northern whites, but plan to return to Kenya, with the mission of seeing Fatu and Najin.
At the conversancy, in the shadow of Mount Kenya under a spreading acacia tree, there is the Rhino Memorial, graveyard for the rhinos killed by poachers since 2004 inside the well-guarded conservancy.
Standing beside his grave, I read Farewell, Sudan.
Read more about ol Pejeta Conservancy here.
Farewell, Sudan
1973-2018
One
Swipe left, swipe right, a last ditch effort to be picked on Tinder
to find a perfect mate
for Sudan, the lone male northern white rhinoceros,
the only one on seven continents, a repugnant
armored-car-tank mash up straining to be a loveable
creature in its pic. Recently rejected as a sex partner
by its two female zoo mates, its zookeepers resorted
to a dating app and declared Sudan
the World’s Most Eligible Bachelor, looking
for another species of rhino somewhere to love him
and fundraise for his captive breeding program,
a desperate effort to abate his extinction.
His forefathers coveted for their exquisite horns
ground into powder by apothecaries for headaches
and hallucinations, snakebites and demonic possession.
Coveted for luxury good
bragging rights of the bored ultra-rich
to be the first of their cadre
to sip whisky from rhino horn cups
and fill curio shelves
with rhino horn carvings,
their carcasses abandoned to hyenas
and vultures on the savannah. The app crashed,
a first for Tinder, as the world spasms in horror
breaking our hearts. At this writing,
only five northern white rhinoceros
alive on the planet destined to be apparitions ghosted.
Two
The last male white rhino on the planet and destined
to be an apparition ghosted,
Sudan lived past his life expectancy,
his shelf life expired. On what day I care not to remember
or memorialize, his vet for decades euthanized him.
Once upon a time the infant rhino was exported from the plains of Sudan,
to spend his life as an embellishment
in the Dvor Kralove Zoo in Poland.
Its mission to experiment
with captive breeding to save
the northern white rhinos and outwit
the biology of extinction.
All lovers know stress obstructs desire
and lowers libido and displacement
from the African grasslands
to Polish winters disrupts
cues and what ever triggers
a creature to breed absent in the laboratory
and experiments to replicate mechanisms of nature
a failure. Some creatures perceive rain and begin breeding
and certain birds only mate when they can eat
conifer seeds and just like us,
there are particulars that seize us unexpectedly
and compel us to collide into each other with ferocity
which startles and what variables drive me
or any animal into this frenzy
remains mysterious.
Protecting Sudan in his last days of life against poachers
Saving the Northern White Rhinos
Ol Pejeta is home to the last two northern white rhinos, where they are under the watch of armed guards of the Kenya Wildlife Service and guard dogs 24 hours a day. Poaching has taken its toll on rhinos as their horns can fetch between $60,000 to $100, 000 on the black market. Their horns are made of keratin, the basic substance of fingernails.
Interest in saving endangered species was heightened by the news of the decades-long efforts to save the northern white rhinos from extinction. At Ol Pejeta, experiments to cross breed northern white rhinos with southern white rhinos to preserve the rhino genetics are underway.
Read more about the work to save rhinos here.
Witness to Extinction: An Update
Author and photographer Sam Anderson traveled to Ol Pejeta Conservancy and produced the stunning update on the fate of the northern white rhinos in his New York Times Magazine profile titled, Witness to an Extinction: An Encounter with the Two Last Northern White Rhinos on Earth.
For a deeper understanding and experience of the last white northern rhinos on the planet, read Sam Anderson’s compelling article augmented by his stunning and heartbreaking photographs.
Read more Sam Anderson’s article here.
