What Happened Next
by Ken Watkins
It seems that World Rhino day came around again, and I missed it by a day. Here is what the Giraffe did next in relation to my recent post.
No doubt all those who dwell only on gloomy news were busy spreading even more, this is a quote from the International Rhino Foundation
"Despite the heavy toll of poaching, birth rates by black rhinos -- of which there are 5,000 left in nine countries in Africa -- continue to slowly increase, said the IRF.
Meanwhile, the white rhino population of about 20,400 is also slowly increasing.
"Overall, populations have remained relatively stable in the face of increasingly aggressive and sophisticated poaching, but the situation is almost certainly unsustainable in the long term," said the IRF in its annual State of the Rhino report released on Friday." (13th November 2013), the IUCN also shows increasing populations.
Let us not forget that the majority of Rhino poaching occurs in Kruger and the poachers emanate from Mozambique, I wonder if you can guess whose idea it was to drop the fences? Luckily they are being rebuilt!
EOS 1DX
200-400 mm F4 at 526 mm
F8
ISO 1600
1/320
Comments
5 commentsPassably good news on the two rhino species; thanks for passing it along.
Thanks for your comment, only to glad to dispell misinformation
Yes, the giraffe appears to be deferring to the rhino. Although the image is only about 0.6˚ off-level (needs CW rotation) it is noticeable.
Commentary confuses me - so we should ignore poaching because it's bad news and just focus on the good news?
Brad
You obviously have a better leveling machine than me
I do not want to get into a discussion about Rhino Poaching but as you asked here is my response
"My comments about the overall Rhino situation are based on people whose business is to tell the facts rather than distort for the purposes of obtaining donations, the very people that encouraged the fence dropping.
The current poaching levels result not just from those nasty Chinese/Vietnamese, but the ease with which the "fence haters" have made the poachers job.
Let us not forget that without Operation Rhino in South Africa there would not be any Rhinos to poach"
I noticed the off-level nature of the image by looking at it - not measuring it (it's visually obvious - long waterlines do that). Measuring only came later so I could give you a value to use in levelling the image.
Thanks for your opinion on who's facts to believe re: approaches to the conservation of rhinos.
Brad