The last male white rhinoceros on the planet comes armed with some pretty tight security.
Forty-year-old Sudan the rhino has been put under 24-hour armed guard in the 90,000-acre Kenya game conservancy he calls home after the decimation of his entire species by poachers.
A species that had survived for 50 million years prior to the interruption of horn-seeking humans in recent decades.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, there were more than 2,000 northern white rhinos on the planet in 1960, but that number was reduced to 15 by 1984 thanks to poaching.
The hope is that Sudan will one day (soon) be able to produce offspring and save his type from extinction. He is joined by two female rhinos of his subspecies at the conservancy, while the other two remaining female northern white rhinos live in captivity.
It looks like Sudan has some work to do.
So, however, do his armed guards.
Some poachers are apparently as ruthless to the guards as they are to the creatures with their precious horns.
Sudan’s horn could be worth a cool $75,000/kilogram on the highly lucrative rhino horn black market.
As further security measures, the rhino has been fitted with radio transmitters, and his horn has been removed to deter poachers. The conservancy is also monitored by GPS trackers, surveillance aircraft, and dogs that are trained to detect humans and security breaches.
In order to keep Sudan and other rhinos safe from greedy hunters and poachers, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy where Sudan lives has started a crowdfunding effort called “Keep Rhino Rangers Safe” to get the workers the funding they require.
It’s sad that it’s come to measures like this when it comes to protecting the world’s most captivating creatures.
But then again, some people like to kill for the sheer thrill of it.
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