THE LAST ANIMALS

THE LAST ANIMALS

By Brian Joseph

It is said that you never know the importance of something till you lose it. I wish I knew are indeed the most painful words one can utter and this brings me to the subject of my story. We all love animals, we all love and aspire to go to parks and even get into the seas and watch the beautiful animals; the beautiful corral reefs that are found in the ocean. But what if I told you that in the next couple of years our zoos and parks will be empty and only bushes and a few people will be telling the stories about existence of animals like elephants, rhinos, Colobous monkeys and the coral reefs. But the main question remains when shall we stop being greedy?

This is a question that all  animals would ask if given a chance. It hurts to realize that there is an international body which promotes ivory trade. Why do you want elephant tusks? Why do you want rhino horns yet they are made of the same material that has made our nails. Are they not made of keratin? And why do you want them? Just to make ornaments and become rich: does the end justify the means?

The list of carcasses are devastating unless something is done and is done quickly. If in a decade we lost 7000 elephants and it seems that some governments are in support of this since in some cases military air crafts are used so that the process is done quickly and swiftly. Moreover of late this trade has become very organised as they are even using night vision googles so that they can conduct their illegal operations when everyone is sound asleep.

The white rhinos are now almost being termed as extinct since Sudan, the only northern male white rhino passed away in  two thousand and eighteen after spending years under heavy protection at the Kenya wildlife service. The reason these species are going ] extinct it is because Sudan’s semen was unfortunately of poor quality hence could not have been harvested as was done to Nabire’s ovaries the only female white rhino in Europe and we are talking about ten to fifteen years probably for the scientist to come up with another white rhino out of Nabire’s ovaries.

But even out of the death of both Nabire’s and Sudan the countries involved in this trade are not learning anything out of that. All they think of is how they can fill their pockets with money all in the name of fame . Let me ask: how would you feel if you were being hunted down for your nails.

At times I don’t know what is going through these poachers’ minds since they went ahead to kill the only white giraffe that has ever been existence in the whole wide world. Let me ask what is there to be gained out of a giraffe?
Now what’s left of the giraffe is a tale to be told to the generations to come, unless another one is born and we don’t know when that will be. Now what would have been another wonder of the world is gone thanks to somebody’s greed and it is never coming back.

Greed has led to people even endangering the coral reefs in the oceans. Over-fishing is among the major causes of these beautiful creatures being endangered. Careless tourism where people just get to deposit waste on the beach which finds its way into the ocean hence polluting it.

Someone might ask why the reefs are important. Well, they do help in protecting the coastline from waves, tropical storms and most importantly they provide shelter to many marine animals and the consequences of destroying the reefs cab be cataclysmic. Talk about reduced or no sea life at all and by reduction of the sea life, most people will get affected since those living along the shores would lose their food source. Fishermen will lose their daily bread unless we protect these precious creatures.

Did you know that coral reefs are beneficial to human beings. Being home to a wide range of aquatic species which includes thousands and thousands of fish species which are food for human beings and they also protect the coastal cities against natural calamities such as hurricanes etc.

How I wish we would wake up to a world where greed doesn’t rule the world. Many people think that it is only the responsibility of the wildlife department to take care of these animals but rather it is our collective responsibility to take care of the animals .

The responsibility begins from home: taking care of our pets to the crawling safari ants since we can’t start protecting the big animals while the pets we have at home are not being taken care of. Together we can save the animals since unity is strength.

Let’s all unite to save the lives of these animals since they are important members of our society.

©Brian Joseph