Going, going
Gone.
Dear reader,
I’m slightly fixated on orangutans. I find them to be fascinating creatures.
I’ve always kind of liked them, but my gentle obsession with them kicked in at the beginning of 2024. At the time I was habitually lurking in my local library, taking advantage of the safe environment and free internet in order to hide from a bad situation at home while frantically trying to find a new place to live in addition to saving an ailing business. It was an awful time; I didn’t want to do anything except curl up in a ball. I would march myself into the library at opening time, sit myself at a desk until closing time, and bribe myself through the day with the promise of orangutans:
‘Spend the next hour chasing overdue payments and you can watch an orangutan video.’
‘Spend the next hour working on your marketing and you can watch an orangutan video.’
Orangutans are in danger of going extinct, just one of too many animals around the world. The idea that these delightful creatures might cease to exist - and due to human agency / delinquency - is horrifying. But alongside an interest in orangutans and concern for their plight, I think my earlier fascination with them also came down to my own sense of yearning for some kind person to come and rescue me, rehabilitate me, and release me back into a verdant and fruitful environment far away from pollution and poachers. In the end, I had to rescue myself, a horribly incremental and muddled process. But I still like to watch orangutans; I guess that my interest in them has outlived my own selfish concerns. I hope that this is a mark of some kind of recovery.
Did you know that Australia had its own ‘tiger’?
Well, the Tasmanian Tiger was not really like a tiger but more doglike and was also known by the alternative name Tasmanian Wolf. It got its tiger name because it was striped. It was also known as a Thylacine and, tragically, it is extinct.
There are some photographs and footage (which I find to be heartbreaking) of the last ever Tasmanian Tiger, called Benjamin, being held in a zoo.
A creative prompt for you.
Send a message back through time to Benjamin. Or perhaps some other extinct animal. What will you convey to this creature on behalf of us all?
I don’t mind admitting that I am finding this hard to do - words fail me. Apart from ‘sorry’.
(The excerpt about the Tasmanian Tiger above comes from this old post, which contains some other tiger-themed content.)
I couldn’t watch the video of the Tasmanian tiger. As someone said in the comments section, we usually see extinct animals in text books but to see one on video moving around is just heartbreaking. It feels unreal.