Western black rhino declared extinct

[Harpo]

Western black rhino declared extinct - CNN.com


Whatever happened to the rumour about the healing powers of powdered poacher's parts?

 

[thaddeus6th]

Sad news.

The Sumatran rhino will go the same way. Its numbers are too low for a gene pool sufficient to last.

Very sad news. Moronic superstition and an inexplicable fashion is leading to actions that are not only immoral but self-defeating. You can't use powdered black rhino horn if you've killed them all.

 

[HareBrain]

Its numbers are too low for a gene pool sufficient to last.

Not necessarily, I believe -- a small gene pool is only a fatal problem to species survivability if harmful mutations arise (or are already present). All the pet hamsters in the world are descended from the same mother who lived less than a century ago, for example.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Well that's depressing.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Really? I hope you're right.

 

[HareBrain]

Really? I hope you're right.

(I assume you're replying to me rather than Nerds -- and I assume he was responding to you or Harpo rather than me )

That's what I heard from the mouth of David Attenborough at a talk on Galapagos wildlife recently -- an audience member asked how the populations of marine iguanas could have survived if they'd descended from a handful of individuals washed across from South America, and he explained that a small gene pool was not necessarily a bar to a healthy future population.

Of course, whether the Sumatran Rhino will get a chance to prove him right is extremely doubtful.