Sudan, the last male northern white rhinoceros, was euthanased in March at the age of 45. He survived the near-extinction of his species in the 1970s, when he was brought to a Czechoslovak zoo. He returned to Africa in 2009, where he lived the rest of his life on a conservancy in Kenya.
With two females still alive (though old), there is hope that the subspecies might yet be saved through in-vitro fertilisation, cellular technologies and gene editing. Nothing is certain.
In some respects, human life takes precedence. We rightly pay attention to brutalising political-economic systems, natural disasters and wars without end.
But the impending loss of an animal that evolved over six million years, and once grazed in hundreds of thousands, is worth noticing. There can be room in our hearts to lament.
When we gaze at other creatures, we arrive eventually at our own reflection: as fragile and connected, our life a gift among gifts. For people of faith, subtractions from the natural world tear at a divine vision of beauty. This is not how it is meant to be.
Off the coasts of Georgia and Florida, not a single right whale calf has been spotted in what is meant to be the winter calving season. This has left scientists more than concerned, following recent high mortality.
The number of hedgehogs in the British countryside is less than half what it was in 2000. In rural France, populations of once-ubiquitous birds like the Eurasian skylark have fallen by at least a third. On the plains of Kazakhstan last spring, around 200,000 saiga antelopes died spontaneously, a mass mortality event (MME).
"Even if animals were mere embellishment to the planet, what a gift to let go of, and how cruel and hollow we are prepared to be, leaving even more of nothing to future generations."
According to an Australian Conservation Foundation report, Australia has lost 29 mammals since colonisation, three of them quite recently: the Christmas Island pipistrelle, the Christmas Island forest skink, and the Bramble Cay melomys. There are fears that the koala is effectively extinct in parts of New South Wales and Queensland.
We can go on and on. 'The situation has become so bad,' says ecology researcher Gerardo Ceballos, that 'it would not be ethical not to use strong language'. He led a study published last year, which refers to 'biological annihilation'. It concludes that 'humanity will eventually pay a very high price for the