Why Did the Western Black Rhino Become Extinct?

  • Context: News 
  • Thread starter Thread starter Greg Bernhardt
  • Start date Start date
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
Sign up Log in
12 replies · 5K views
Greg Bernhardt
Admin
Insights Author
Messages
19,978
Reaction score
11,076
Africa's western black rhino is now officially extinct according the latest review of animals and plants by the world's largest conservation network.
The subspecies of the black rhino -- which is classified as "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species -- was last seen in western Africa in 2006.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/10/world...pecies-report/index.html?sr=sharebar_facebook

Here is a full list of other endangered species
http://www.Earth'sendangered.com/list.asp
 

Discussion

Biology news on Phys.org
All species eventually die (as will the human species at some point). Average lifespan for a species is approximately 1 million years (very roughly), with an average skewed by many short lived species and a few long lived species.

That said, the rate of extinction at this particular time rates as a mass extinction event. In the past, life on Earth has always recovered from mass extinctions after about 5 to 10 million years (longer than the lifespan of the Homo genus, let alone our species).
 
BobG said:
All species eventually die (as will the human species at some point). Average lifespan for a species is approximately 1 million years (very roughly), with an average skewed by many short lived species and a few long lived species.

The sad thing is that it was not natural per say. It was from poaching.
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
The sad thing is that it was not natural per say. It was from poaching.
Exactly, it wasn't their time to go. They are killed for their horns, the Chinese buy the poached horns and sell them ground up as an aphrodisiac.
 
Evo said:
Exactly, it wasn't their time to go. They are killed for their horns, the Chinese buy the poached horns and sell them ground up as an aphrodisiac.

Anecdote from a wildlife biologist acquaintance: some 20 years ago, Grizzly bears and Kodiak bears in Alaska were being heavily poached for their gall bladders, which were supposedly a cure for erectile dysfunction :rolleyes:. The main markets were Japan and South Korea.

But the poaching reduced noticeably around 2000. Why? Viagra! Unlike bear gall bladder, it *actually* works, so why go kill a poor bear?

Poaching is still a big issue, though. Apparently there is still a market for other "medical" :rolleyes: uses for bear gall bladders.
 
BobG said:
All species eventually die (as will the human species at some point). Average lifespan for a species is approximately 1 million years (very roughly), with an average skewed by many short lived species and a few long lived species.
Well the Western Black Rhino is a subspecies of the Black Rhino species (still around), so by that standard a human subspecies has already gone extinct (Neanderthals).
 
Last edited:
No big deal: I place the economic interests of humans over that of rhinos (or trees, for that matter).
 
Synaptic said:
No big deal: I place the economic interests of humans over that of rhinos (or trees, for that matter).

So much derp, on so many levels.

Claude.
 
I read a book called "Uncas" it was a good book and spoke of the unification of the Mohegan Indian tribes on the east coast(CT) area. Can you imagine that time of clear waters and knowing what was coming. This person unified the tribes which enabled settling that much earlier and allowed the development of the US.

What would have happened during various wars and what would have been the outcome had this tribe not unified the coastal tribes. He questioned his acts until death wondering the affects of what he had done.

Without compassion or a sense of loss or respect for all life a human being is nothing to themselves or to anyone else. Our disconnected reality is our greatest enemy in life and will always be.

The economic system is a curse upon the Earth that drives all that has ever been bad upon this earth. We could have become what we can be without it.
 
Evo said:
Exactly, it wasn't their time to go. They are killed for their horns, the Chinese buy the poached horns and sell them ground up as an aphrodisiac.

Of course, everything they sell is either an aphrodisiac or grants good luck... or breaks 2 days after you buy it.
Damn iPed.