Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, resided in the Ol Pejeta conservancy in Kenya where he remained under 24-hour protection from poachers. At 45 years of age, he suffered from deterioration of the muscles and bones and was ultimately put to rest on March 19^th, 2018.

As the last male of his species, the fate of his kind relied crucially on him. With only 2 descendants, his daughter and granddaughter, the survival of the species is looking rather slim. Scientists are working hard to try to impregnate one of the females using IVF methods, but the demise of the northern white rhino is only a matter of time.

Unfortunately, the northern white rhino isn’t the only species to have gone extinct recently. The West African black rhinos went extinct in 2011, the Javan tiger went extinct in the 70s and the golden toad went extinct in 1989. These are but a few of the species to have gone extinct in the last century, and the numbers are only increasing.

Many will brush this event off as simply the circle of life, something we couldn’t have prevented. To them, this is just another news story that they’ll forget by next week, but this is more than just a news story, it’s reality. The death of this “gentle giant” symbolizes a much broader crisis than just the demise of the northern white rhino.

Animals are going extinct at startling rates. Thousands of species are in danger of going extinct and THAT’S NOT NORMAL. People don’t realize that we are on the verge of entering the 6^th mass extinction. That’s not even the scary part.

Researchers decided to conduct a study to see how our current mass extinction compared to extinctions in the past, and the results are terrifying. They found that the normal extinction rate of species averages less than two species per million years.

Comparing that to our numbers in just the last 500 years, there is a minimum of 80 species that go extinct for every 5570 species. This rate is above that rates of the other 5 mass extinctions our planet has faced. If species populations continue to decline at the rate they are now, three-quarters of species alive today may be extinct within 300 years.

Barnosky, one of the researchers on this study, says, “Look outside of your window. Imagine taking away three-quarters of the living things you see and ask yourself if you want to live in that world.”

We are in a mass extinction that is predicted to last hundreds to thousands of years and it’s due to human activity. It’s saddening to see species like the northern white rhino that have survived millions of years, but aren’t able to survive mankind.

Unsustainable human activity is driving thousands of species to the brink of extinction. We poach animals until there are no more left, we destroy habitats for the sake of housing and profit, we treat the earth like our own private wastebasket and we simply do not care about the repercussions of our actions.

It’s time we made a change. We know the what’s happening and why and we know the steps we need to take to fix it. It’s time to start taking some responsibility for our actions.

We are on the brink, but our fate is not inevitable. We still have a chance to prevent the 6^th mass extinction, but we must act quickly because once a species is extinct, no about of guilt will bring it back.