Rhinoceri Philosophies

Bogor’s Zoological Museum costs eleven cents to visit.
Aside from the blue whale skeleton assembled in the back shed, the entire museum is essentially a wilted taxidermy exhibit set up in scenes behind poorly lit glass cases. Because Indonesia has such tremendous biodiversity, the collection of bizarre / poisonous / flamboyant birds, insects, fish, reptiles & mammals is impressive anyway. The key disappointment, of course, is that they're all dead. Then again, that’s probably the key relief as well; 11 cents is enough to maintain them.

Two things. While the label is ambiguous, I’m pretty sure the tigers they have on display are Javans. This is striking to me personally, because years ago I wrote a short story titled “The Patron,” in which the protagonist has the last two Javan tigers—Panthera tigris sondaicus—mounted in her library after her husband unintentionally causes their death (& with them the species’ formal extinction) in 1975. I’d never expected to see a pair in real life, nor mounted just so—just like I’d written it. It’s an odd connection to feel—it was something I’d only imagined—yet suddenly, there they are!

Second. There’s a suspiciously shiny black rhino centered in one room, inside its own glass case. Black rhinos are not extinct (nor are they usually, literally, so black), but it’s highly endangered. With a discernible note of pride in claiming it, the explanatory plaque alleges that this very rhino was the last living specimen in the area. As its mate had recently been killed by poachers (ie: it had no more reason to live) & it was too far away to reunite with “its family” by foot, it was “collected” in the name of Science, so that poachers would not get to it first.

This exhibition of lacquered black rhino skin appears to be the nobler destination that Science had in mind. And lo, here I am: posterity, my 11 cents paid in full. I squint at the rhino & try to feel I am bettered by this. Whether or not that choice really was the lesser of evils, whether or not it’s even true, the plaque can’t resist concluding that Science managed to collect this sucker with a single bullet.

What really makes this an arresting story to me, however, is the fact that the big news story this week, the one cheerfully bannering the papers (solace to articles on the latest plane crashes / earthquake / flood / mud volcano), is the US graciously flying a Sumatran rhino stud—Andalas, one of the first of his kind born in captivity—62 hours out from Cleveland to Lampung, Indonesia, so that that he can impregnate the zoo rhinos here.

The last black rhino Science shot for posterity because the rhino’s mate was dead & it was too long a walk to rejoin the herd. Today, Science sees fit to fly a rhinoceros across the globe in order to preserve the species (no flash-frozen, Fed-Exed rhino sperm for us, no: we Americans deliver a FULL payload). There’s something wonderful in this insanity. That we would do such a thing. Sure, such exorbitant funds & transportation might be imagined in other uses, though saving rhinoceri from extinction seems worthy, too. They say there are only 300 Sumatran rhinos left. Perhaps today, on some cosmic ledger, one extravagant waste has been balanced by another?

I'll say this much: I have now seen the last black rhino in Indonesia stuffed & mounted in a case in Bogor. I have also stood witness to a living rhinoceros' mating, in a US zoo. I realize the different between the two choices is money: keeping rhinos happy & healthy enough to mate in public captivity is something afforded.

Still, speaking as Posterity, but addressing Science: in the future? The second event was the bettering show. Oh my.