孤獨(dú)的身影：世上最后一頭雄性北白犀

What is it like to look at the very last of something？ To contemplate the passing of a unique wonder that will soon vanish from the face of the earth？ You are seeing it. Sudan is the last male northern white rhino on the planet. If he does not mate successfully soon with one of two female northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta conservancy， there will be no more of their kind， male or female， born anywhere. And it seems a slim chance， as Sudan is getting old at 42 and breeding efforts have so far failed. Apart from these three animals there are only two other northern white rhinos in the world， both in zoos， both female.

It seems an image of human tenderness that Sudan is lovingly guarded by armed men who stand 1）vigilantly and caringly with him. But of course it is an image of brutality. Even at this last desperate stage in the fate of the northern white rhino， Sudan is under threat from 2）poachers who kill rhinos and 3）hack off their horns to sell them on the Asian medicine market—despite the fact that he has had his horn cut off to deter them.

Sudan doesn’t know how precious he is. His eye is a sad black dot in his massive wrinkled face as he wanders the reserve with his guards. His head is a marvellous thing. It is a majestic rectangle of strong bone and leathery flesh， a head that expresses pure strength. How terrible that such a mighty head can in reality be so vulnerable. It is lowered 4）melancholically beneath the sinister sky， as if weighed down by fate. This is the noble head of an old warrior， his armour battered， his appetite for struggle fading.

Under his immense looming shoulder， his legs protrude like 5）squat columns from the tough tank of his body. The way his foreleg emerges from his thick coat of skin reminds us how long human beings have been wondering at the natural spectacle that is the rhino. For Sudan does not look so different from the rhinoceros that Albrecht Dürer portrayed in 1515. They have the same little legs stuck out of a majestic body and they even lower their heads in the same contemplative way. Dürer was a Renaissance artist picturing an exotic beast from the exotic lands that Europe was starting to see more and more of. In 1515 a live Indian rhinoceros was sent by the ruler of 6）Gujarat to the king of Portugal： he in turn sent it to the Pope， but it died along the way in a shipwreck.

Human beings—we always kill the things we love.

We have been doing so since the Ice Age. There are beautiful pictures of European woolly rhinos in caves in France， that were painted up to 30，000 years ago. These ancient relatives of Sudan share his heroic 7）bulk， mighty power and paradoxical air of gentleness. A woolly rhino in Chauvet cave seems 8）agile and young， a creature full of life. But the same people who painted such sensitive portraits of ice age rhinos helped to kill them off. As climate turned against the woolly 9）megafauna with the end of the last ice age， human spears probably delivered the 10）coup de grace.

Today， immense love is invested in rhinos， yet they are being slaughtered in ever greater numbers. The northern white rhino is the rarest species of African rhino. There are far greater numbers of southern white rhinos and black rhinos. But the demand in Asian countries such as Vietnam for rhino horn as a traditional medicine believed to cure everything from the flu to cancer is fuelling a boom in poaching. From 2007， when just 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa， the killings have grown horrifically. Last year 1，215 rhinos were slaughtered for their horns in South Africa. And this year already looks certain to beat that dreadful record.

This is a photograph from the front line of a crisis. The vulnerable northern white rhino has been hunted virtually to extinction—in spite of every precaution， in spite of these guards and their guns—and other varieties of African rhino are under a sustained attack from poachers that is totally out of control. The Javan rhinoceros is also on the verge of extinction. India has successfully protected the Indian rhinoceros after it was almost wiped out by British hunters in colonial times， but here too poaching is a menace. What a majestic creature this picture records， and what 11）futile human destructiveness. Have we learned nothing since the Ice Age？ Can the better angels of our nature not defeat the impulse to kill？

看著世上最后僅存的某樣?xùn)|西是什么感覺(jué)？想到某樣獨(dú)一無(wú)二的珍寶很快就會(huì)從地球上消失是什么感覺(jué)？你正在目睹這樣的事情。“蘇丹”是世上最后一頭雄性北白犀。如果它不能與奧佩杰塔自然保護(hù)區(qū)的兩頭雌性北白犀中的任何一頭交配成功的話，那么世上將不會(huì)再有任何一頭北白犀降生，無(wú)論是雄性還是雌性。但是成功的機(jī)率似乎很小，因?yàn)樘K丹已經(jīng)42歲高齡，而此前的交配繁殖都失敗了。除了這三頭北白犀，世界上僅剩下的另外兩頭都在動(dòng)物園里，都是雌性。

這似乎是一個(gè)展現(xiàn)出人類柔情的畫(huà)面——手?jǐn)y武器的男子正警惕而充滿關(guān)懷地站在蘇丹旁邊守衛(wèi)著它。然而事實(shí)上，這個(gè)畫(huà)面展現(xiàn)出的是人類的殘忍無(wú)情。盡管北白犀的命運(yùn)已經(jīng)到了生死存亡的關(guān)頭，蘇丹依然受到來(lái)自偷盜者的威脅，他們會(huì)把犀牛殺死，然后把它們的角砍下來(lái)賣(mài)到亞洲的藥品市場(chǎng)——即便為了阻止他們，蘇丹的角已經(jīng)被砍掉了。

蘇丹并不知道自己有多珍貴。它與其守衛(wèi)在保護(hù)區(qū)里漫步，它的眼睛是它那滿布皺紋的臉上一個(gè)悲傷的小黑點(diǎn)。它的頭看上去奇妙而不可思議，一個(gè)神圣的矩形，由堅(jiān)硬的骨頭以及皮革似的皮肉所組成，是一顆表現(xiàn)出絕對(duì)力量的頭。這樣強(qiáng)大的頭實(shí)際上卻如此容易受到傷害，這是多么可怕的一件事。在無(wú)情的天空下，它憂傷地低著頭，仿佛被命運(yùn)壓倒了一般。這是年邁的戰(zhàn)士那高貴的頭顱，他的盔甲破破爛爛的，他的斗志也已消失。……