Photo by @amivitale. Guards watch over Sudan, the last known living male Northern white rhino, at Ol Pejeta Conservancy (@olpejeta). In 2009, I followed four of the last Northern White rhinos as they were brought back to Africa from a zoo in the Czech Republic. It was a desperate, last-ditch effort to save an entire species. When I saw these huge, hulking, gentle creatures surrounded by smokestacks and factories in the zoo outside of Prague, it seemed so unfair that we have reduced an entire species to this. Today, with only five left, extinction seems inevitable. It survived for millions of years, but could not survive mankind. Much-needed attention has been focused on the plight of wildlife and the conflict between poachers and increasingly militarized wildlife rangers, but very little has been said about the indigenous communities on the front lines of the poaching wars and the work that is being done to strengthen those communities. #LastMaleStanding #whiterhino #savetherhinos #natureisspeaking #rhinos #nature #magicalkenya #Africa #animals #safari #wildlife #NikonNoFilter #nikon #nikonambassador #amivitale #photojournalism #photooftheday #onassignment @nature_africa @natgeocreative @thephotosociety @nikonusa
