A rare animal bites the dust, and we all cheer
It was yet another bleak day for one of the world's endangered species. Here we are talking not of the violent and pointless - save for an arrow and a bullet or two - demise of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, but of the clinical delivery of a message on a card that spelt out the fate of another fabulous beast.
That card flashed up in a conference hall in Kuala Lumpur on Friday night and simply said: "Beijing 2022". The species in question is, of course, the fabled white elephant.
No one who takes a serious interest in wildlife and nature could be unaware of this animal's magnificent past or its somber future. The particular subspecies at hand is the Elephantus maximus albus, the literal translation of which, as anyone with schoolboy Latin will tell you, is "a giant waste of money".
