Thinking of unicorns
02/04/16 05:25
I don’t know how far back stories of unicorns go, but my imagination was stirred by a Shel Silverstein poem that was made famous by a Canadian band called “The Irish Rovers.” A recording of the song was released in 1968 and became a popular radio tune. The record sold 8 million copies. The poem appears in Silverstein’s book, “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and was actually released as a song in 1962 on and album by Silverstein called “Inside Folk Songs.” A number of other artists have covered the song.
A long time ago, when the Earth was green,
There was more kinds of animals than you've ever seen.
And they'd run around free when the Earth was being born,
And the loveliest of 'em all was the unicorn.
There was green alligators and long-necked geese,
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees.
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born,
The loveliest of all was the unicorn.
The poem goes on to tell how the unicorns were playing when Noah was loading the animals onto the ark. They missed the boat. “That’s why you never seen a unicorn to this very day.”
The story is a modern invention. There is, of course, no mention of unicorns in the Bible.
However, I recently read an article on history.com about researchers from Tomsk State University in Russia who have been analyzing the well-preserved fossilized skull of an Elasmotherium sibiricum, a huge, hairy rhinoceros-like creature that was previously thought to have gone extinct 350,000 years ago. What is striking about this particular skull according to findings published in the American Journal of Applied Science is that radiocarbon dating of this skull goes back only 29,000 years. That means that the creature, commonly known as the “Siberian unicorn,” could have roamed the earth at the same time as humans.
The studies made no mention of Noah and his ark. Silverstein might have been using his imagination on that point.
The article pretty much dispels with the notion of a horse-like creature as is often imagined by the writers of cartoons and illustrators of children’s books. This beast was massive and had long hair and the horn was enormous. At their largest, these ancient rhinos were thought to have measured nearly seven feet tall and 15 feet long. They weighed in at 4 tons.
The name rhino brings up entirely different images in our minds than the name unicorn. We do think of rhinos as a kind of prehistoric beast with armored skin. Indeed modern rhinos have been on the earth for at least 60 million years.
Today, however, all five species of rhinos are perilously close to extinction. In the decade of the 1970s alone, half of the world’s rhino population disappeared. Less than 15% of the 1970 population remains, perhaps a total of 10,000 to 11,000 worldwide. While Indian rhinos may be coming back from the brink and African white rhinos have rebounded some from their lowest population level, black rhinos are seriously endangered. It was estimated that there were 65,000 black rhinos in sub-Saharan Africa in 1970. There are fewer than 2,500 left today, in isolated pockets in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and Tanzania.
One of the greatest dangers to rhinos is poaching. Poachers kill the animals and cut off the horns. The horns are prized for a variety of uses. It is said that the horns have medicinal properties, but the most common use is for making handles for knives and daggers. Elaborately-carved dagger handles are symbols of wealth and status in Yemen and other countries of the Middle East. When the price of oil is high, people are willing to pay enormous amounts for this ornaments. As recently as 1990, the horns of a single black rhino brought $50,000 on the black market. Like the poaching of elephants for their ivory, poaching for rhino horn is so profitable that subsistence farmers and herders can’t resist the opportunity at sudden wealth.
In some places conservation officials have even tranquilized rhinos and sawn off their horns so that poachers will have no reason to kill them. In other areas, rhinos are literally kept under armed guard, accompanied by guards as they graze at day and kept in locked compounds at night. There have been some limited success with captive breading programs. The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is the US center of captive breading to save black rhinos.
Rhinos aren’t pretty like mythological unicorns. Still, I think it would be a deep tragedy if we were lose these magnificent animals. Even though I’ve never seen a rhino in the wild, I’d like to have them around for my great grandchildren to see.
In the Silverstein poem, there isn’t much discussion of why the flood is brought down on humanity: “Well now God seen some sinnin’ and it caused Him pain. And He said, ‘Stand back, I’m going to make it rain!’” The song goes on to pretty much put the blame on the unicorns for their own demise: “The unicorns were hiding, playing silly games. They were kickin’ and splashing’ while the rain was pourin’. Oh, the sally unicorns!”
In contrast, the rhinos aren’t having much luck at hiding, which might in fact prolong their existence rather than endanger it in the circumstances of our modern world. The bottom line is that rhinos are endangered by the practices and decisions of humans, not because of some problem in their own natures.
We humans do have a massive impact on this planet and all of its resources. Our behavior and our decisions have altered the world in many dramatic and a few irreversible ways. Animal extinctions often have a direct relationship to human behavior.
I miss Shel Silverstein. I wish he were around today to write us a new poem. Perhaps he could inspire us to more than just a general sad feeling about creatures that have been lost. It is going to take more than a sad feeling to save the rhinos. Poets are often the best among us at motivating us to make real changes.
A long time ago, when the Earth was green,
There was more kinds of animals than you've ever seen.
And they'd run around free when the Earth was being born,
And the loveliest of 'em all was the unicorn.
There was green alligators and long-necked geese,
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees.
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born,
The loveliest of all was the unicorn.
The poem goes on to tell how the unicorns were playing when Noah was loading the animals onto the ark. They missed the boat. “That’s why you never seen a unicorn to this very day.”
The story is a modern invention. There is, of course, no mention of unicorns in the Bible.
However, I recently read an article on history.com about researchers from Tomsk State University in Russia who have been analyzing the well-preserved fossilized skull of an Elasmotherium sibiricum, a huge, hairy rhinoceros-like creature that was previously thought to have gone extinct 350,000 years ago. What is striking about this particular skull according to findings published in the American Journal of Applied Science is that radiocarbon dating of this skull goes back only 29,000 years. That means that the creature, commonly known as the “Siberian unicorn,” could have roamed the earth at the same time as humans.
The studies made no mention of Noah and his ark. Silverstein might have been using his imagination on that point.
The article pretty much dispels with the notion of a horse-like creature as is often imagined by the writers of cartoons and illustrators of children’s books. This beast was massive and had long hair and the horn was enormous. At their largest, these ancient rhinos were thought to have measured nearly seven feet tall and 15 feet long. They weighed in at 4 tons.
The name rhino brings up entirely different images in our minds than the name unicorn. We do think of rhinos as a kind of prehistoric beast with armored skin. Indeed modern rhinos have been on the earth for at least 60 million years.
Today, however, all five species of rhinos are perilously close to extinction. In the decade of the 1970s alone, half of the world’s rhino population disappeared. Less than 15% of the 1970 population remains, perhaps a total of 10,000 to 11,000 worldwide. While Indian rhinos may be coming back from the brink and African white rhinos have rebounded some from their lowest population level, black rhinos are seriously endangered. It was estimated that there were 65,000 black rhinos in sub-Saharan Africa in 1970. There are fewer than 2,500 left today, in isolated pockets in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and Tanzania.
One of the greatest dangers to rhinos is poaching. Poachers kill the animals and cut off the horns. The horns are prized for a variety of uses. It is said that the horns have medicinal properties, but the most common use is for making handles for knives and daggers. Elaborately-carved dagger handles are symbols of wealth and status in Yemen and other countries of the Middle East. When the price of oil is high, people are willing to pay enormous amounts for this ornaments. As recently as 1990, the horns of a single black rhino brought $50,000 on the black market. Like the poaching of elephants for their ivory, poaching for rhino horn is so profitable that subsistence farmers and herders can’t resist the opportunity at sudden wealth.
In some places conservation officials have even tranquilized rhinos and sawn off their horns so that poachers will have no reason to kill them. In other areas, rhinos are literally kept under armed guard, accompanied by guards as they graze at day and kept in locked compounds at night. There have been some limited success with captive breading programs. The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is the US center of captive breading to save black rhinos.
Rhinos aren’t pretty like mythological unicorns. Still, I think it would be a deep tragedy if we were lose these magnificent animals. Even though I’ve never seen a rhino in the wild, I’d like to have them around for my great grandchildren to see.
In the Silverstein poem, there isn’t much discussion of why the flood is brought down on humanity: “Well now God seen some sinnin’ and it caused Him pain. And He said, ‘Stand back, I’m going to make it rain!’” The song goes on to pretty much put the blame on the unicorns for their own demise: “The unicorns were hiding, playing silly games. They were kickin’ and splashing’ while the rain was pourin’. Oh, the sally unicorns!”
In contrast, the rhinos aren’t having much luck at hiding, which might in fact prolong their existence rather than endanger it in the circumstances of our modern world. The bottom line is that rhinos are endangered by the practices and decisions of humans, not because of some problem in their own natures.
We humans do have a massive impact on this planet and all of its resources. Our behavior and our decisions have altered the world in many dramatic and a few irreversible ways. Animal extinctions often have a direct relationship to human behavior.
I miss Shel Silverstein. I wish he were around today to write us a new poem. Perhaps he could inspire us to more than just a general sad feeling about creatures that have been lost. It is going to take more than a sad feeling to save the rhinos. Poets are often the best among us at motivating us to make real changes.