Edward, the Baby Rhino

Victoria and Edward from http://endextinction.org

It’s been a frustrating couple of weeks, and it’s been a little tougher for me to stay positive. Thanks to social media (which I am pulling further and further away from except for Instagram; feel free to follow me at @RumpleDumple there), it is harder and harder for me to avoid all the bad news in the world. I mean, I don’t want to bury my head in the sand, but I get that the world is currently a literal dumpster fire. but I don’t need to know all the details all the time. Fortunately, in the past month or so, we’ve seen some really good news: the birth of Edward, the first baby rhinoceros born by artificial insemination in North America. Watching the videos from San Diego Zoo Safari Park have filled me with so much joy, I thought this week I would share them with you.

On July 28, at about 6 pm, Victoria, a female southern white rhino gave birth to a little baby. I had known that Victoria was pregnant—my wife and I are donors to the San Diego Zoo in general, and had arranged for my grandfather’s foundation to donate a large amount to the Nikita Kahn Rhino Rescue Center in particular—so Lacey Lee in the zoo’s development office had sent me pictures of the baby moving around in his pregnant mommy’s belly. I hadn’t heard about the birth until Lacey emailed me the next day, but I immediately sought out videos of the baby.

I must have watched this first one ten times over and over again that first day.

I particularly love the moment about 20 seconds in when Victoria lifts her head to look at the baby laying next to her. I’ve read articles ostensibly “discussing” whether animals feel love or not, and too often, the conclusion is that they do not. But all of those articles insist on applying human definitions of “love” to animal behavior, like willingness to sacrifice themselves for the one they love, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s just crazy talk. 

Animals aren’t humans. Animals don’t have the same priorities as humans, and we can’t equate their behavior and emotions to human behavior and emotions. That way lies madness and stupidity. However, if you can see the way Victoria is looking at her child in this video, and in the following videos, and you don’t believe that she loves her baby, then—and this is not up for discussion—you have no soul.

A few days later, it was announced that the baby would be named Edward, after the brother of Ellen Browning Scripps, whose foundation had contributed to the zoo’s rhino conservation efforts. 

Over the next few days, the zoo posted a number of videos of Edward playing with his mother. 

A few weeks after Edward’s birth, the zoo posted a video of the actual moment of birth. I can’t watch this video without sobbing uncontrollably with joy. It represents such a milestone for the rhino population, and it moves me so much.

A few years ago, in 2016, my wife and I visited the then-newly-opened Rhino Rescue Center and spoke with the keepers working there. It was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life. They explained to us that one of their early goals would be to get the rhinos used to entering the small exam pen, which would keep them pretty immobile because it’s not much bigger than an adult rhino. Then they would get them used to being closed into the exam pen. Then they would get them accustomed to being touched while in the pen. Finally, they would get them used to being physically examined while in the pen.

I feel like we live in a time where the average person believes that science has solved all the problems of the world. After all, we use silverware and smoke and can pave over our environment; surely this is the pinnacle of human development? I remember visiting the Hoover Dam visitor center several years ago, and heard someone comment while watching the video about what an incredible feat of engineering that structure is, “It’s amazing they knew how to do all that stuff back then.” As if we’ve evolved from cave men to human perfection (as represented by Twitter, I guess) in just a generation or two.

This is the only photo I took at the Rhino Rescue Center in 2016; I wanted to focus on all the stuff I was learning.

Personally, I believe that every generation has thought exactly that, with the absolute surety that they understand everything about their world. Whether that’s the sure knowledge that the earth is flat, that you cure diseases by leaching and trepanation, that lighter-than-air flight is the only way to leave the surface of the earth, that a device filling an entire room is the smallest computers can get, that people can be deemed inferior based solely on the color of their skin, or by the deity they worship, or by who they love… Ok, we still haven’t gotten past that last one yet. Or many others, either.

My point is, things like artificial insemination are fairly common in human medicine today, so when those words get tossed around in relation to rhinos, I believe the average person thinks that it’s no big deal. Just stick the sperm into a female rhino and let nature take its course. I might have believed that as well if I hadn’t visited the Rhino Rescue Center that day.

But I did, and I did learn what a remarkable achievement it is that Victoria gave birth to Edward in the way that she did. I am completely in awe of what everyone involved with this project has done. And, personally, I am a bit proud that our contribution helped make this incredible thing possible.

Also, in a time where the news is filled with things being taken away from the world, whether it’s human rights, human lives, or destruction of the environment, it fills me with extraordinary joy that we have found a way to put something back.

There are two living northern white rhinos in the entire world. 

Two individuals.

If it were possible for a northern white rhino baby to be born, that would increase the population by 50%.

Baby Edward gives hope for that possibility, between the science and technology and medical advances that made his birth a reality, and the preserved genetic material places like the San Diego Zoo have been maintaining. We are one step closer to helping an extinct species survive.

We are destroying our planet. But baby Edward represents another way. And that makes me happy.

I have been receiving and reading 2000 ADs the last couple of weeks, but I feel like I don’t want to talk about anything but Edward this week. So I’ll end things here, and see you in a couple of weeks.