It was the grim climax of a conservation crisis that had been accelerating, for many decades, toward precisely this moment. Although his death was a disaster, it was not a surprise. Sudan was the last male northern white rhinoceros on earth - the end of an evolutionary rope that stretched back millions of years. He was a giant stillness at the center of all the motion. Until recently, Sudan had been a part of this pulse. All around him, for miles in every direction, the savannah teemed with life: warthogs, zebras, elephants, giraffes, leopards, lions, baboons - creatures doing what they had been doing for eons, hunting and feeding and scavenging, breathing and going and being. His big front horn was blunt, scarred, worn. Sudan lay still in the dirt, thick legs folded under him, huge head tilted like a capsizing ship. Little black-faced monkeys came skittering in over the fence to try to steal the morning carrots. On the horizon, the sun was struggling to make itself seen over the sharp double peaks of Mount Kenya. The day Sudan died, everything felt both monumental and ordinary. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
0 kommentar(er)
