Rhinos Nearing Their Dusk

Posted on July 6, 2002 in Zoos

Over there, beneath the tree,” the tour guide calls out over the public address system. “Doing a very good boulder imitation are our two female Northern White Rhinoceroses.” The lonely male stands in the shade of a nearby tree. The cows age, grow decrepit. Their race dies out. These are three of the last ten or so left. The crowd on the monorail stretches for a look at the brink of extinction. Lynn giggles. “I wouldn’t screw you if you were the last rhino on earth!” she guffaws as the train pulls out. I try to point my lense at them, catch the photons they repel as a record for the affinal lines who will never see these creatures.

Goodbye white rhinos. They found out too late that your women like to run in a crash, several protecting your young. These are your last days and you spend them far from your native Africa on a broken, pallid plain under a California live oak.