As the scene before us began to sink in, there were no words. It was a bizarre juxtaposition: Sabi seemed so peaceful lying there, and yet the starkness of his mutilations told of the suffering he had endured and the depravity and greed of mankind. The farm workers, Derik, and the rest of the team, started on the post-mortem under the supervision of the police. To our great relief we were not required. We sat down on the dry, dusty dirt of the enclosure, a few metres from where Sabi’s body was slowly losing its majestic identity in a procedure familiar to all of us. No words were exchanged. Once again, we were each of us lost in our thoughts, processing and trying to come to terms with it all. As a group of six vets, we had all seen hundreds of dead animals, witnessed hideous injuries and experienced desperate sadness in our careers to date, but this was different: a deliberate, targeted, malign and murderous cruelty, driven by grotesque human avarice, and meted out on an innocent and beautiful animal.
We were just about holding it together, each of us masking our anguish with a feeling of outrage. Or at least we were – until we started hearing a high-pitched, mewing cry. At first we were clueless as to its origin or significance. It was a rather irritating, uncomfortable sound, but as it persisted, it dawned on us that this was the distressed rhino cry to which Lisa had earlier alluded. Peering between the wooden posts separating the two enclosures, we could just make out the rhino next door. He was repeatedly, obsessively, pacing up and down against the fence, crying out unremittingly in an impassioned whimper. We will never know exactly what those cries signified, those visceral, emotive, childlike cries. And though it is always dangerous to anthropomorphize, it was impossible not to hear these cries as heartfelt and agonizing – cries of confusion, cries of grief, cries of concern. Why was his friend not responding? Why was there so much human activity around him? Why was there that distinctive smell of blood that he could only recognize intrinsically as danger, a sense that all was not right?
For us, though, to hear such a pathetic and feeble noise emanating from such an immensely large and powerful creature was the last straw. It was as though he were begging us, on behalf of all rhinos, to do something. Turning away, I was glad of the sunglasses masking my eyes. There was no holding back the tears anymore.
Rhinos: fast facts
Ceratotherium simum: The white rhinoceros
Distribution: There are five distinct species of rhinoceros, two native to Africa and three to Southern Asia. 98.5 per cent of white rhinos live in just five countries (South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Uganda).
Names: An adult male is called a ‘bull’, a female a ‘cow’, and the young a ‘calf’. A group of rhinoceroses is called a ‘crash’.
Life span: About 40–50 years.
Habitat: Mainly open, grassy plains, though other species prefer swamps or forested areas.
Diet: The white rhino is a grazer, and is distinguished from the black rhino, which is a browser, by its wide flat upper lip, which allows it to pull up even short grasses.
Gestation: 16–18 months.
Weight: Newborn calves weigh 40–65 kg, reaching an adult weight of between 1,700 kg (females) and 2,300 kg (males).
Growth: Females tend to live in crashes of up to 14 animals; males are usually solitary, but will stay with a female for up to 20 days at mating. The female raises a solitary calf, only giving birth every 3 to 5 years. The calf will stay with the mother until about 3 years. Females reach sexual maturity at about 5 years, while males reach sexual maturity at about 7 years.
Body temperature: 36.6–37.2 °C.
Interesting fact: Contrary to popular belief, the name ‘white rhino’ doesn’t refer to its colour, but comes from a mistranslation of the Dutch word ‘wijd’, meaning ‘wide’, referring to the width of its mouth which distinguishes it from the narrow pointed mouth of the black rhino.
Conservation: Of the five species of rhinoceros the IUCN identifies the black, Javan and Sumatran as ‘critically endangered’, the Indian as ‘vulnerable’ and the white as ‘near threatened’. The statistics surrounding rhinos are horrifying: only about 275 Sumatran rhinos and a mere 60 Javan rhinos remain in the wild; between the 1960s and 1990s black rhino populations fell from 70,000 to 2,410, and the Indian rhino to about 1,870. In 2007 13 rhinos were poached in the whole of South Africa; in 2014 the number reached 1,215, which equates to more than 3 a day. So although there are estimated to be around 20,000 white rhinos in the wild, and about 4,500 black rhinos, at current poaching rates rhinos will be extinct from Africa within 25 years. What is more, the manner in which these animals are brutally slaughtered leaves them to suffer and die in agony. Saving the Survivors is an incredible charity whose focus is on the treatment and care of all wildlife, but particularly rhinos that have fallen victim to poaching or traumatic incidents. See www.savingthesurvivors.org.
11
DONKEY
‘I hope you heard that? She called me a noble steed. She thinks I’m a steed.’
Donkey in Shrek
‘It’s John from the donkey sanctuary here,’ came the familiar Wiltshire accent over the phone.
‘Hi, John, how are you?’
‘Oh, very well, sir, very well, thank you – and you?’ came the usual reply. Born of a lost generation where manners were everything, it was always so humbling when an older gentleman to whom I felt a natural deference, addressed me with such regard. In John’s eyes, though, as a veterinary surgeon I deserved respect. In turn I admired and respected John immensely for his lifetime of unassuming, selfless dedication to the care of neglected animals, and in particular, donkeys. It was this mutual respect that was central to our working relationship and served to benefit the goats, pigs, sheep, dogs, cats and 120 donkeys at the sanctuary John had established over thirty years before.
‘I’m well, thanks. The usual problem of not having enough hours in the day!’
‘Indeed, Jon, indeed, always too much to do when it comes to caring for animals.’
‘How can I help?’
‘Jon, it’s Pollyanne. She’s gone lame again on both front feet. It’s a worry with Carmen coming up in a couple of months, she needs to be sound and ready for that. It’s the last run and they’ll be devastated if she can’t be on stage.’
Pollyanne was, without question, the star and public face of the donkey sanctuary. John had rescued her from Salisbury Livestock Market in 1997, where he had found her distressed, severely neglected and destined for imminent slaughter. Appalled by her condition, he had immediately offered to buy her there and then, and taken her home. It had taken a huge amount of work to gain her trust, and a long programme of farriery to rectify the years of neglect to her feet, but after many months’ care she had come round, and she and John had formed an inseparable bond. Thriving on attention, she soon became the natural choice for Nativity plays, Palm Sunday services and any other event where a donkey was required. From the sanctuary’s perspective too, she exemplified everything it stood for and was striving to achieve: providing a home for neglected donkeys where they were cared for, nurtured, and encouraged to trust humanity again.