Journal Entry 11(Chapter Eleven)-Ziomara Aguilar

Next Kolbert goes to the Cincinnati Zoo where she meets Suci the rhino. The conservation director Dr. Terri Roth explains to Kolbet that Suci, who is a Sumatran rhino, is one of only five left of her kind. These rhinos are an endangered species so Roth has been trying to, unsuccessfully, artificially inseminate Suci.
Sumatran rhinos use to live in the Himalayas, Sumatra, and Borneo. The species had been a very common one but are now endangered. In an effort to preserving the species, a few rhinos had been sent to an American zoo. Unfortunately, five died immediately due to a disease spread by flies. Then in Borneo, many died from tetanus and other wounds. To worsen the situation, zookeepers realized that the rhino couldn't eat the dry hay, they needed fresh leaves. By that time, only three rhinos remained in America. Emi was a rhino that Roth had tried to inseminate in a zoo in Los Angeles. After multiple fails, she had Suci and another male who was named Harapan. These two were the first to be born in thirty years. Like rhinos, many other large mammals are living in captivity where scientists are trying to make them reproduce.
By the 19th century, scientists began to wonder why the majority of animals to go extinct were large mammals. Just recently, scientists have begun to think that humans hunted these animals into extinction. Some reasons to believe that humans killed the large mammals are that it is more likely that it happened periodically rather than in a large event. Secondly, these mammals have survived other environmental catastrophes before humans arrived. Thirdly, fossils give no indication of malnutrition meaning that these mammals did not starve into extinction. Scientist John Alroy believes that small nomadic hunting groups could of most likely killed the large mammals. He claims that the Anthropocene had begun years before the industrial revolution. Before humans, being a large mammal had been an advantage, but because of environmental changes, it had become a disadvantage. Thes large mammals were easy targets for human hunters and reproduced slowly.  This is another example of humans altering natural systems.