Are Namibia’s Rhinos Now Under Siege?

By Garry Rogers @Garry_Rogers

GarryRogers:

GR:  Nowhere is safe for rhinos. Once intelligence arose alone without the guidance of wisdom, most of Earth’s species were doomed. Can our species survive when only the toughest ruderals remain? Perhaps we will die or send a small colony into space. Either way, evolution could once again begin to recreate the biological riches it held when we appeared. Probably not. Why go to space when we can cover Earth with solar cells, wind turbines, hydro-generators, and of course, hydroponic greenhouses. With only small adjustments, our current non-sapient behavioral systems will survive.

Originally posted on strange behaviors:

Early this year in The New York Times, I wrote an op-ed in praise of Namibia’s work in restoring populations of endangered black rhinos and, more important, in avoiding the poaching nightmare taking place next door in South Africa (on track to lose 1100 rhinos this year).  Here’s part of that piece:

Daniel Alfeus //Hawaxab– aka Boxer

Namibia is just about the only place on earth to have gotten conservation right for rhinos and, incidentally, a lot of other wildlife. Over the past 20 years, it has methodically repopulated one area after another as its rhino population has steadily increased. As a result, it is now home to 1,750 of the roughly 5,000 black rhinos surviving in the wild … In neighboring South Africa, government officials stood by haplessly as poachers slaughtered almost a thousand rhinos last year alone. Namibia lost just two.

But a new report says the…

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