Seeing Beautiful: Newly Born

Last week the Buffalo Zoo greeted the first Indian Rhinoceros born through artificial insemination. Her father, Jimmy, died in 2004. Tashi, her mother, has successfully given birth twice before. She is named for Dr. Monica Stoops, Reproductive Physiologist, who led the team. 
There are 59 Indian rhinos in captivity in North America. About 2,500 remain in the wild. 

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Wide-eyed, wrinkling her nose
and smiling gently
at an unexpected world
of straw and cement.
She gleams,
beautiful in her new-wrought armor.

Her every nuzzle and sip,
her tottering steps,
recorded by carefully placed cameras,
by modern Noahs eager to preserve
her precious cargo.

Is there an ancient memory,
buried,
of grassy India?
The homeland she will never see? 

Within her lives again
A heritage of DNA,
instructions for making a baby
like her.

Joe Hauser, head rhino keeper, and Dr. Monica Stoops

Named for a pseudo parent,
first for science,
first of her species
born to a long-dead father
and the indispensable Rhinoceros unicornis,
the one our ingenuity can't replace,
her mother.

Monica.


Today is the second anniversary of Sugar the Golden Retriever's {This Moment}See Beautiful blog hop. Please join in with a post about what you find beautiful today.