Giving Back

Unable to wait for international pressure, negotiations or education and a change of policies to take effect, a black rhino explodes into a poacher’s camp. 

The tables are suddenly turned. 

In the snorting chaos of dust and breaking branches, poachers scramble to avoid the lethal flailing of the very horn they have come to harvest. 

The terror and desperation of this moment affords us a glimpse into life as a threatened species. 

The clay began taking shape out of a raw place in my heart. Rhinos always seemed to be as solid and permanent as the granite boulders of a lowvelt koppie; now they are being poached in the parks created to protect them. 

Previous guerilla-war tactics have recently found a new battleground. In a bloody war for horn and ivory, a fight rages in hidden places all over the African continent on a daily basis. 

Deep-seated corruption and greed within governments has created an environment conducive to the illegal trade of animal products. Unscrupulous dealers take advantage of the desperate poverty of those marginalized by the leaders they voted into positions of authority effectively turning ordinary citizens into poachers.

Diplomacy, tolerance and negotiation are the tools used by developed nations to overcome problems and differences. But massive disparities in culture, worldview and socio-economic realities seem to render such tactics ineffective in the developing world. Maybe the story behind this small bronze will reinforce the urgency of the situation and inspire us to be more directly involved. 

The freeze-frame climax of the bronze shows the rhino grinding an AK 47 into the ground, triumphant – if only for this moment – in the battle for its own survival.

The message should be clear to us all: WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, FIGHT BACK!

 A small family of elephants feeds through the African bush on their way to the river. You won’t hear an elephant walking, but they are not quiet animals. Herds communicate with one another over huge distances rumbling and trumpeting as they go.  

They come into a clearing and stop dead. Startled by the remains of an elephant, the family is immediately silent. Their movements slow, and their body language changes. 

Elephants are intelligent animals that experience many of the same emotions humans do. It is well documented that whenever a herd comes across the carcass or the bones of an elephant the whole herd will fall silent and come, one by one and tentatively, maybe nervously but certainly respectfully pick up the bones with their sensitive trunks. They will taste them, touch them to their bodies and lay them down again as if to pay tribute and acknowledging their life and then move on quietly. 

But this time something is different. 

The tension is tangible. They listen. The subadult moves forward hesitantly. She’s not sure what she’s seeing. Her trunk stretches out to feel, to smell, to understand. She’s young, but her instinct tells her that this is not the scene of a natural death. 

Her mother senses something. She sniffs the air, trunk curved above her head, and suddenly, she knows. She feels the violence still hanging from the broken branches and mixed in with the churned up dirt. The machete marks clearly visible on the skull – POACHERS! She pulls back and trumpets loudly, panicking the small family. The big bull immediately enraged, wheels around to confront the danger and nearly tramples the tiny, bewildered calf in the chaos.