Here is the Archive of our Previous Centerfold Pictures.
Enjoy!
January, 2001
The touching picture above is of an Indian Rhinoceros, and comes to us from Animal Magazine on the World Wide Web. Even after this long, I learned some new things about this beautiful variety of rhinoceros from reading the brief article which accompanied the picture. As a bonus for your visit, you can send the above picture as a postcard to someone you love. To visit Animal Magazine, just click on the link below.
For July and August, 2001
The wonderful picture above was sent to me as an e-card by a friend. I sure wish I was that ranger, getting to hang out up close with a beautiful rhinoceros like that! That is how it oughut to be, between Rhinos and humans. You can no doubt send this very card to all your friends by clicking on the link, and, as the company has the good taste to feature such a spiffy card, with a Rhino and a Ranger, perhaps you ought to give them some e-business next time you wnat to send a card, eh? http://www.webshots.com is the place to go. And don't forget to leave the company a message telling them how much you appreciate the rhinoceros!
For June, 2001
The pictures above are not as new as they might be, but their age makes them no less charming. The baby rhino, Chitwan, was born in 1996 at the National Zoological Gardens in Washington, D.C., once the absolute favorite haunt of your editor. The pictures are from the Smithsonian Magazine: the Smithsonian being the other favorite haunt of your editor in those days.
Chitwan is probably all grown up now. Rhinos grow fast, and I am sure the people in charge of the Zoo keep the tigers at bay. Chitwan is a one horned Indian Rhinoceros, and if you should happen to be in Washington you might want to pay her a visit. The rest of the story can be read by clicking on this link.
For April and May, 2001
The beautiful photo of a Black Rhinoceros above is from a site devoted to Communication Between Black Rhinoceroi. (Click it to visit it.) It is a simple enough site, but an added feature is a little clicker that allows you to hear one of the charming, almost bird-like, vocalizations of the Rhinoceros. All one could wish is that there were more of the little clickers, as the site informs us that the Rhinoceros is one of the most talkative creatures in Africa; excluding those noisy humans, of course.
For February & March, 2001
Our thanks to Sean, who figured out how to make our link to the Happy (But Endangered) Rhinoceros Page work. With luck, click here! --and you can visit it.
The Art of Portraiture is a pretty specialized business: one usually reserved for the immortalization of various speciments of Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but sometimes lavished on the companions animals which humans keep to keep them human. Most wildlife photography shows our less domestic friends as, well, animals. But above you see Brent Huffman's portrait of a Sumatran Rhinoceros, and I would submit that it fullfills all the criteria required of that art form. Beauty, characters, and a great sense of the personality of the subject are all evident in the rendering of the photographer's vision. Every bit as much a conveyance of character as the formal portraits of Ingre; and a lot better to look at than those tedious abstractions of his girlfriend that Andrew Wyeth foisted off on us!
We found this wonderful picture at the Animal Info site, and we were truly astonished at just how much information there was. The page on the Sumatran Rhino is the most complete that I have yet found on the web. We recommend a visit; and, if you would like something beautiful in the way of portraiture, we suggest you hunt down Brent Huffman and see about purchasing a print of some of his wonderful work. To get there, just click here.
January, 2001
The beautiful picture above is from the Wildlifepics Website, and may be viewed as an unsolicited plug for that site. While most such sites have one or two pictures of rhinos, Wildlifepics has a whole bunch of them. Not only that: you can send them as postcards. And they have a wildlife shop and a newsletter, and many other interesting things to see. We heartily recommend that you click on the link above annd visit the site, if only to view the beautiful rhino pictures in their archive.
November & December
September & October
July & August
For June, 2000
A Family Portrait: the Wonderful White Rhino
This photo is from the Happy (but endangered Rhinoceros Page. We have the correct address, but our link to them doesn't seem to work. They can be reached, however, via a search engine, if you look up Rhinoceros Pictures.
For May, 2000
A really, really rare photograph, and here's why!
Scientists find rhinoceros thought to have been
extinct!
A handful of a subspecies of the Javan rhinoceros were photographed in
a bamboo forest in Vietnam.
By H. Josef Hebert
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - Long thought extinct, a victim of poachers and war, the
Javan rhinoceros of Vietnam is actually clinging to a tenuous existence.
The first photographs were offered as proof Friday that a handful - probably no
more than six or eight - had survived in a bamboo forest in an area that had
been largely decimated during the Vietnam War.
"It's the most endangered mammal species in the world," said Steve Osofsky, a
rhinoceros expert for the World Wildlife Fund.
Fund scientists recently captured the rhinoceros on film, using remote cameras
triggered by infrared laser beams. The pictures were made available by the
conservation group, which is working with Vietnamese authorities to protect the
animal.
During the war and in the years that followed, it was widely believed that the
rhino had disappeared. But there had been talk of sightings among villagers.
Tracks found in the muddy, bamboo-forested terrain provided additional clues -
but not certainty.
This spring, specialists including Mike Balzer, a wildlife photographer, trekked
into the rhino's suspected habitat in Dong Nai province, about 80 miles north of
Ho Chi Minh City. They set up 10 cameras, each triggered when an animal
crossed a beam. And they waited.
"Surprisingly, they were able to get photos within two weeks," Osofsky said.
The Vietnamese rhino is a subspecies of the endangered Javan rhinoceros, of
which there are probably fewer than 60 in the world - all on the Indonesian
island of Java, according to scientists.
Historically, Javan rhinos ranged widely from eastern India as far north as
China and throughout Southeast Asia. But they were in great demand by
poachers, who sought their horns for use in traditional Chinese medicines.
The Vietnam War brought more devastation. The region where the rhino lived
was full of land mines and marked by sporadic fighting. Much of its traditional
habitat was damaged by the defoliant Agent Orange.
The area in which the rhino was photographed was set aside for protection by
the Vietnamese government in 1992 and was incorporated into the Cat Tien
National Park last year.
But the rhino remains under heavy pressure from encroaching farmers, many of
whom have expanded into the area to grow cashews and other crops, Osofsky
said.
The World Wildlife Fund, the International Rhino Foundation, and the Asian
Rhino Specialist Group are working with the Vietnamese government and local
villagers to protect the rhino.
But its survival "is extremely precarious," Osofsky said. "We're doing
everything we can to pull it back from the brink, but it will take a mammoth
effort to secure the species' future."
***
For April, 2000
Above you will see the Great Indian Rhinoceros, also called the One Horned Rhinoceros, or Rhinoceros Unicornis. Earlier this century this species was down to 200 total members; but thanks to intense conservation efforts on the part of the governments of India and Nepal, Rhinoceros Unicornis is up to about 2,500; still endangered, but proof that a conservation effort with a small population can have positively astounding results. This photo is from the Happy (but endangered Rhinoceros Page. We have the correct address, but our link to them doesn't seem to work. They can be reached, however, via a search engine, if you look up Rhinoceros.
For March, 2000
For February, 2000!
For January, 2000!
December of 1999
You can also go directly to the Rhinoceros Lodge Home Page via this link.