World Rhinoceros Day (22/09)

September 22 marks the environmental holiday World Rhino Day, designed to draw humanity's attention to the problem of the extinction of such a rare animal as the rhinoceros.

The biological diversity of species on planet Earth continues to decline, including animals whose names have been known to every person since childhood. Among them was a rhinoceros, some species of which were simply in danger of extinction at the end of the 20th century.

It is no secret that human activities to transform the world around us for one’s own needs sometimes result in the saddest consequences for other living beings on the planet. In addition to indirect factors of human activity, which have a detrimental effect on representatives of the fauna, it is also the fact that individual animals turn out to be objects of poaching.

It was poachers who brought the rhinoceros to the brink of extinction. And the reason for this was the ideas of individual traditional cultures about the supposedly exclusively healing properties of his horn. The cost of 1 kg of this animal's horn on the black market reaches $65,000, and it can weigh between 1 and 3 kg.

It is in the circles of biologists and nature lovers that they first begin to sound the alarm about the death or threat of extinction of certain species of animals. The World Wildlife Fund* in South Africa has taken the initiative to proclaim September 22 as World Rhino Day in order to draw human attention to the problem of the disappearance of this rare representative of the fauna.

The initiative was supported by environmental organizations around the world. The first to respond were the countries on whose territory populations of one or another species of rhinoceros live. There are 5 such species in total: black, white, Indian, Sumatran and Javan rhinoceroses. Zoos, reserves and nature reserves of many countries around the world invite everyone to get acquainted with the life and habits of the rhinoceros, as well as simply admire this unusual, rare, amazing animal.

The holiday was established in 2010 and initially concerned the fate of African rhinoceroses (Photo: Chriskruger, licensed by depositphotos.com)

There are photo exhibitions dedicated to World Rhinoceros Day, where the animal is captured in its natural habitat, against the backdrop of expressive landscapes, as well as photographs of rhinoceroses killed by poachers as dissonance –... The call to preserve and protect from death silently breaks from these photographs. Concerned nature lovers support flash mobs in defense of the rare animal through social networks.

The holiday was established in 2010 and initially concerned the fate of African rhinoceroses, but the general sad fate associated with the activities of poachers, which brought all species to the brink of extinction, united their Asian relatives along with African rhinoceroses.

The fight against poachers is now becoming the main solution to the problem, capable of stopping the process of death of entire species. After all, the rhino population destroyed by 95% in the 20th century, according to biologists, may disappear within 20 years if the facts of poaching are not completely stopped.

* – In March 2023, the Russian Ministry of Justice added the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, formerly called the World Wildlife Fund) to the list of foreign agents

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