Joe Crooks: Endangered Species Given a Chance to Make a Comeback

Satire Essay by Joe Crooks

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA- The South African Parliament has passed into legislation a new law leading to the death of the last female black rhinoceros in the world. Today, promptly at 2:00, when the law took effect, legalizing the hunting of exotic animals in zoos, South African President Jacob Zuma himself raised the rifle that would end the rhinoceros’s life.

“The show of support that Zuma himself showed toward this new law is something that our founder J. W. B. Gunning himself would have been proud.” said Craig Allenby, the Nation South African Zoo’s manager of commercial and business development.

“As of 2:00, today the entire species has been doomed,” proclaimed Dr. Joseph Oroki the foremost expert on rhinoceros, “Which is a real shame because the horns can be fashioned into really neat knife handles and even jewelry. Now that there will be no more rhinoceros, though the price of ivory will most likely skyrocket. It is the best alternative by far, even though it has none of the medicinal purposes that the horn of a rhinoceros do.”

When asked what he would do with the last female rhinoceros in existence, President Zuma said he would probably try to make a stew with the meat and use the horn’s medicinal purposes to help keep his blood pressure down.

“This new law should really help with attendance, attracting a whole new crowd of hunter that can now utilize these zoos to hunt wildlife currently on the edge of extinction,” commented the zoo’s director Dr. Clifford Nxomani “We had been having a real problem with attendance, but with this new law we’re expecting a large influx of people coming to take advantage of our wide selection of exotic and near-extinct animals.”

Dr. Azar Jammine, the nation’s leading economist, commented on how this new law will help all zoos and animals, that this will “help populations of endangered species. Now that zoos will be making all of this cash with new admissions they will be encouraged to breed and increase the quality of conditions that these animals live in.” Dr. Jammine also went on to describe that any threat of overpopulation can be forgotten. “Any overpopulation of these species can be dealt with by extending their hunting seasons and lowering the costs associated with hunting them.”