Miss Piggy Lunchbox

Here are a couple of AP photos by Mark Keppler of a one-day-old rhino in Germany.  Click through for larger (and cuter) versions.

Happy Save The Rhino Day.

If you’ve taken any enjoyment from MPL, please consider donating what you feel is a fair amount to the International Rhino Foundation.   MPL is a losing proposition money-wise.  We have costs (the domain name and the hosting) and make no revenue.  If you could help defray those costs in the form of saving rhinos, though, it’s all good.  As great as rhinos are, they can’t save themselves.

AHOOGA!

It’s urgent.  (Emphasis mine.)

There are fewer than 60 [Javan Rhinos] left in the wild — almost all in a single Indonesian national park — and numbers appear to be declining for the first time in decades because of low birthrates.

…

Conservation groups say it is the world’s most endangered mammal.

About 50 live in Ujung Kulon National Park, but it appears that only three of the females are breeding continuously.

As a result, an average of one calf is born every year — near to the number of animals dying, and four times fewer than would be needed to sustain a healthy, growing rhino population, [Christy Willams, the WWF's Asian Rhino Specialist,] and others say.

Williams said the park may have reached the maximum number of rhinos it can support and the animals may also be struggling to compete for scare resources with growing populations of wild cattle.

The government is working with conservation groups to find a suitable second site for the Java rhinos, which would help protect them from catastrophic events like disease or natural disasters, Williams said.

Researchers say a smaller population of Javan rhinos in Vietnam does not appear to be breeding anymore.

So let’s try this: MPL’s first save-the-rhinos fundraising drive.

I know times are tough, but if you have the means, please consider donating to the International Rhino Foundation here.

For every $25 you donate, I’ll give you one post at MPL.  Heck, I’ll even write it if you want, just ask me to riff on a theme or something.  I will reserve the right at a final edit, so you can’t mention my birth name or put hate speech up, but I’ll let pretty much all reasonable content go up untouched.

There have been a couple of great rhino stories lately that I haven’t had a chance to mention yet, so these might be a little stale, but they’re still awesome.

First, a baby rhino was born in the Dublin Zoo and she was debuted to the public on June 4th. She is absolutely beautiful.

And then, and I can’t decide which of these two stories is more awesome, is this story of the Javan rhino (the world’s rarest rhino, with fewer than 60(!) remaining) captured on videotape. That’s awesome enough, but then the mother rhino decides she’s unhappy with the camera installation and destroys it. Watching an animal that will probably soon be extinct shouldn’t be a chore, but if you really just want to see the destruction, skip ahead to 0:50 in this video.

It was bad enough that Save The Rhino Day is always eclipsed by May Day and, more recently, Mission Accomplished Day. But now Bush has tried to distract attention from this focus on both the workers of the world and his miserable legacy by declaring the day “Law Day, U.S.A.” (Yes, that Bush…”Law Day”…I know….)

You know, rhinos have a reputation for being animals with a quick temper who attack at the slightest provocation. You’d think Bush would welcome the opportunity to aggrandize this beautiful and endangered creature. Plus, they live in Africa, which Bush sometimes seems to give a rip about. Maybe if the rhinos had AIDS….

Anyway, I hope your Save The Rhino Day was better than mine. AHOOGA!