Photos by @amvitale. On this day, four years ago, Sudan, the last living male northern white rhino passed away. At 45, Sudan was elderly for his species. He had lived a long life and had found stardom as the “most eligible bachelor in the world.” In his final moments, there was only silence except for drops of rain and the muffled tears of the people who loved and protected him. I think back often on this moment and it is the silence that I remember most - a haunting silence that seemed to foreshadow what a world without wildlife would be like. Without these creatures, we suffer more than the loss of an ecosystem. We suffer a loss of imagination, a loss of wonder, a loss of possibilities. Figuring out how to create a sustainable and just human society that doesn’t destroy the natural world is our single most important challenge. Hope always remains. What’s going to save us all is to get beyond our routine ways of thinking. Wonder is what allows us to reimagine our future together. Wonder allows us to believe that we can fundamentally change the course we are currently on. Thanks to the groundbreaking and inspiring work of the @biorescue_project there are now northern white rhino embryos that will be transferred into a surrogate southern white rhino mother in the near future. The species may still be saved from extinction. Learn more, including how you can donate, by following and supporting @BioRescue_project and @olpejeta, @SafariParkDvurKralove @leibnizizw @SafariParkDvurKralove @KenyaWildlifeService @OlPejeta Conservancy @elodiesampre #Avantea @tunajibu @tourism_wildlifeke @bmbf.bund @leibnizgemeinschaft @natgeo #kenya #NorthernWhiteRhinos #nikonambassador #nikonnofilter #rhinos (at Ol Pejeta Conservancy) https://www.instagram.com/p/CbTZvdqPFYs/?utm_medium=tumblr