Sculpture : Sudan

•

《Sudan》, FRP , 2017

Hualian Arts Awards- Plastic Art Honorable Mention

Size | 70 cm x 39 cm x 27 cm

Material | FRP (Fiber-reinforced Plastic)

Sudan, the last Male Northern White Rhino died in March 2019. By the time he passed away on March 19, 2018, Sudan had spent a decade under 24-hour armed surveillance.

Sudan forms a harmonious picture with the baby on his back, whilst insinuates the extinction crisis caused by human beings. On the other hand, the oxpecker as a bystander condemned the culprit of the tragedy.

Northern white rhinos, a subspecies of the more populous southern white rhinos, once roamed the grasslands of east and central Africa. In 1960, there were approximately 2,000.

War, habitat loss and poaching for rhino horn have decimated populations, and by 2008 researchers could no longer locate northern white rhinos in the wild.

Sudan (1973 – 19 March 2018) was a captive northern white rhinoceros who lived at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia, Kenya. Sudan was euthanized on 19 March 2018, after suffering from "age-related complications".

The oxpecker and the rhinoceros are in a mutualistic relationship.
Oxpeckers land on rhinos and eat ticks and other parasites that live on their skin. The oxpeckers get food and the beasts get pest control.
Also, when there is danger, the oxpeckers fly upward and scream a warning, which helps the symbiont.

Reference /
www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/science/rhino-sudan-extinct.html
necsi.edu/mutualistic-relationships