Deviant Artist eggdoodler carves incredible sculptures out of delicate egg shells. In this series entitled ‘Africa’, eggdoodler uses large ostrich eggs to sculpt an elephant, a giraffe and a rhinoceros. To achieve this incredible detail and removal of so much shell, the artist used a NSK Presto hand piece with diamond and carbide bits. About 1,000 hours of labor is required to sculpt these magnificent eggs.

AOC is devoted to elephant preservation in Africa and we have written extensively on saving the elephants. We know much less about rhinos and giraffes. 

Rhino Conservation Worldwide

The Southern white rhino was once on the brink of extinction with only about 50 left in the wild. Today there are over 20,400 white rhinos in South Africa but only six Northern white rhinos remain, reports SavetheRhino.org.

At the beginning of the 20th century there were 500,000 rhinos across Africa and Asia. This fell to 70,000 by 1970 and further to just 29,000 in the wild today. Despite this bleak picture, and the continuing threat of poaching for their valuable horns, global rhino population figures have been increasing in recent years.

Large-scale poaching of the now critically endangered black rhino resulted in a dramatic 96% decline from 65,000 individuals in 1970 to just 2,300 in 1993. Thanks to the persistent efforts of conservation programmes across Africa black rhino numbers have risen since the early 1990s to a current population of 5,055.

The world cannot relax, however, believing that rhinos are not at risk in South Africa. The dramatic rise in poaching since 2008 in South Africa could derail the positive increases in rhino populations in that country. National Geographic reports that 1000 rhinos were poached in 2013, the higest in modern history. This slaughter represented a 50% increase over 2012.