Photos by amivitale | I still remember the first time I met Sudan as he was being transported from Safari Park Dvůr Králové in the Czech Republic to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in northern Kenya in 2009. He and three other northern white rhinos were being relocated to Africa in a last-ditch effort to save their entire species, a move that was met with protests by local Czechia people who felt it was risky and didn't want the rhinos to go. On that winter’s day, Sudan was one of only eight northern white rhinos alive on the planet. He moved slowly, cautiously. He took time to sniff the snow. He was gentle, hulking, otherworldly. I knew I was in the presence of an ancient being, millions of years in the making (fossil records suggest that the lineage is more 50 million years old), whose kind had roamed around much of our world. A century ago there were hundreds of thousands of rhinos in Africa. Sudan died five years ago. He was 45 years old, elderly for a rhino. He is survived today only ...