Chapter 11- The Rhino gets an Ultrasound

Kolbert introduces the Sumatran rhino with her visit to the Cincinnati Zoo by meeting Suci, a Sumatran rhino. Dr.Terri Roth, the conservation  director for the zoo has been trying to get Suci pregnant as she is one of the five species of Dicerorhinus sumatrensis that still exist. The Sumatran rhino found in the Himalayas was very common even considered an agricultural pest. But population shrank as forests became fragmented, in 1984 a group of conservationists wanted to establish a captive breeding program to save the species. However, the breeding program had a chaotic start as many rhinos succumbed to death and no offspring had been produced. In order for females to ovulate they need to sense a male. The remaining three rhinos during that time two females and one male were the last efforts. Emi, one of the female rhinos, had five miscarriages before becoming pregnant again in the fall of 2000. Emi gave birth to three rhinos two males and one female being Suci. They turned out to be the only Sumatran rhinos born over the past three decades. This raises the question: why are so many exceptionally large animals going extinct?

The Megafauna extinction proved arguably favorable against humans because extinction for large mammals occurred in “pulses” around forty thousand years ago. When an animal reaches a certain size they escape from predation meaning they are not vulnerable to being attacked. When human beings came onto the Earth They were hunters and gatherers which led to a gradual process of extinction as traits that were once advantages became unfavorable. Deforestation was a major factor in the demise of the Sumatran rhino because, “as Southeast Asia’s forests were felled, the rhino's habitat shrank and became fragmented. By the early nineteen-eighties, its population had been reduced to just a few hundred animals”(219) The population declined as their environment became fragmented. When an area is fragmented it leads to a decrease in the number of species in an area. The arrival of humans affected the survival rates of many enormous beasts that once walked the earth.