Sir David Attenborough meets a blind baby rhino (video)

2/8/2013 7:00am by 26

This seemed as good a way as any to start the morning off well.

More angry politics after this brief moment of awwwwwww.

From the video’s description:

Sir David Attenborough concluded his BBC One series about the wildlife of Africa with an extraordinary close up meeting with a blind baby rhinoceros.

He described how the rhinoceros may have its sight saved by an operation and thus be given a chance of survival in the wild like another orphaned rhino called Elvis who had been released after being cared for in the same reserve.

Attenborough mentions in the video that the animal is due to have cataract surgery, but at this point is pretty much blind.

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@aravosis | Facebook | Google+. Editor of AMERICAblog, joint JD/MSFS from Georgetown, worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. A frequent TV pundit, he has been on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Full bio and .

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  • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

    Absolutely enchanting

  • Punkster

    I swear, I love this man more than life itself. He is an INTERNATIONAL treasure.

  • OtterQueen

    Is it just me? I’m not seeing a video.

    • http://AMERICAblog.com/ John Aravosis

      Ok so I’m an idiot. Your point being? ;-) Sorry about that, there’s a video now. (I could have covered by claiming I was trying to make the reader appreciate what it’s like to be a blind rhino – it can’t see the video either – but perhaps I won’t.)

      • OtterQueen

        You should have tried it, I probably would have thought that you’re really profound. =)

        • http://AMERICAblog.com/ John Aravosis

          And you don’t? ;-)

          • OtterQueen

            Not that I’ll admit in public.

      • hollywoodstein

        No worries it’s the early morning.
        Baby rhinos are among my favorite animals. Normally, an animal that develops cataracts this early ( if congenital and not environmental ) should be culled from breeding and only used for education and display, but with so many being slaughtered each year for their horn so some Asian can have some penis powder or some sheikh can have a knife handle we need all the genetic diversity we an muster even ones that may have a propensity for cataracts, ( itself a possible indication of inbreeding).
        So sad we cannot find a place for the wild things, but we are making more people every year, and not more land.
        And then what happens in fifty years when the seasonal rains don’t come?

        • http://AMERICAblog.com/ John Aravosis

          I got cataracts in my 40s, your point being? ;-)

          • hollywoodstein

            Vis a vis the cataracts on the baby rhino, even though adult rhinos do not have the keenest eyesight, if we ever hope to have reintroduce them widely into anything resembling a natural state, which would include some rather efficient predators, it would probably be best to select as foundation stock animals which did not give birth to babies blinded by cataracts. Aside from natural predators we now have marauding paramilitary bands with machine guns taking only the horns all the while other humans encroach on their former ranges for farmland. And even if rhinos survive these threats if global warming takes away the water then game it will be all for naught.
            If you were born on the plains of the Serengeti a long time ago you probably would have died before you reached forty. If you did get cataracts and couldn’t get a gig as shaman it is likely you would’ve starved or been ambushed as lunch.

            In these modern times our cranial capacity and ability to transmit cultural knowledge enables us to ameliorate cataracts. As for negotiating the far more dangerous man-eaters of Washington, D.C. I have every confidence you are more than up to the task, perhaps with a few trophies on the wall to show for it. ;-)

            • http://AMERICAblog.com/ John Aravosis

              Oh with my nearsightedness, I’d have been dead as a child.

              • hollywoodstein

                Oh noes, not that too. Well we are social animals, and a lot of nearsighted people in villages are put in charge of fishing.

              • hollywoodstein

                Except where there are crocs.

              • hollywoodstein

                Ok, so shaman it is.

              • hollywoodstein

                Which on some days probably feels not unlike running this blog.

              • http://AMERICAblog.com/ John Aravosis

                Part shaman, part fisherman, part sex worker :)

              • Naja pallida

                Is there something you want to tell us, John?

              • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

                Don’t forget mighty troll slayer!

              • http://AMERICAblog.com/ John Aravosis

                LOL yes, I think shaman would work :)

              • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

                Many are employed at TSA.

              • hollywoodstein

                Do you mean fishing or fisting?

              • hollywoodstein

                Or noodling?

              • hollywoodstein

                Because that last trip I took they did everything but use a trot line. Must be the blogs I read.

          • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

            OMG, at one time in your early political life you were a Rino…..?

        • hoary_nodens

          Yes…http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Over-82-rhino-poached-in-37-days-20130206

          The fate of the rhinos makes me sad. The fate of humans, well, I consider events like the Sandy Hook massacre as merely predictable symptoms of too many rats in the cage. They don’t move me at all, although they are interesting as facets of the catabolic collapse of American society

          Humanity will get the fate we richly deserve, it is the ultimate crime that we will take, and are already taking, all the beauty with us.

          “Oh you are so cynical!”

          No, I just stare reality in the face and draw the obvious conclusions based on geology, ecology, climate science, statistics, physics, thermodynamics, a lot of reading of human history, and a coldly rational understanding of human nature.

        • Naja pallida

          It is pretty standard practice in zoos and conservation parks to try not to pass on any possible congenital issues… but when the gene pool is so small for a species, sometimes it is not something they can afford to avoid. We are literally watching rhino species vanish within our lifetimes.

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