What The Moon Means To Me
I used to think the moon was made of cheese. I liked believing that happy, chubby mice roamed freely with their abundance of food. I would ignore my classmates who pestered me about my crazy ideas, because it made me content to imagine the cheesy moon, and I didn’t want anyone to ruin my fun. I was innocent and I suppose a little naive, but at that age I had no idea where my thoughts of the moon would turn to.
At the age of 10, I began realizing that perhaps my teachers were correct in that the moon wasn’t made of cheese. As I thought more about the logistics of a cheese moon, I agreed it probably wasn’t plausible. I learned exciting new facts that the moon was made of rock with various chemicals and had cycles throughout the month, starting small, and growing until a full moon. I was so intrigued, and thought the moon was magical, providing a source of light in the darkness of the night. Many evenings, I would sneak out of bed, peer through my bedroom window, and find the beautiful glow of the moon above me. I remember thinking that there must be a bigger reason for this moon to be so bright and magnificent; I just didn’t realize that this light was facilitating the deaths of thousands of rhinos.
We are used to stories of the full moon – stories of a swift darkness, and things lurking in the shadows of the moonlight. Dark creatures appear during the fullest of moons, and are feared by both humans and animals. It is not mythical werewolves I speak of, but deadly poachers. Now I find old childhood fairytales of werewolves are twisted into a nightmare reality.
When poachers cross into a reserve, they are unable to use artificial light for fear of getting seen by rangers or anti-poaching units. When the moon is in its early phases, the poachers move during dusk and dawn, hiding out during the day. In order to maximize their travel time within the park, most poachers will enter a park during a full moon, as the light is bright enough to guide them throughout the entire night. This is why far more poaching incidents happen when the moon is full. For example, in Kruger National Park, around 60 heavily armed poaching groups enter the park during a full moon.To counteract this surge of poachers, Kruger has 6 anti-poaching helicopters flying around every full moon to catch poachers before they murder our irreplacable rhinos.
Upon reflecting on my purely innocent perceptions of the moon, it makes me angry that I will no longer be able to have that optimistic naivite. What I have learned, during my time in South Africa this summer, has tarnished my thoughts of beauty and admiration towards the full moon.
A couple days ago, on July 12th, there was a stunning full moon. At first I was mesmerized and taken aback by the serenity of it, but then my thoughts were clouded with death. All I could think about were the number of rhinos that would get poached that night. With the entire bush visible under the moonlight, where could the rhinos hide? It’s not right that such innocent, wonderful creatures have to endure such perilous times of constant threat. Everytime I looked at the full moon that night, instead of the usual beauty, I saw agony, torture, and rhinos with their horns brutally hacked off.
It made me cringe. It made me sad. But most of all, it made me angry. Not just angry that poaching is taking place, but angry that my innocent views are now lost forever. I can never get them back, no matter how hard I try to pretend that the moon is still made of cheese. As well as robbing me of my innocence, poachers are stealing the lives of innocent rhinos. Once lost, the Big 5 will become the Big 4 and we will never be able to turn back the clock. More people need to be educated about rhino poaching, and more people need to fear the full moon.
– Kennedy Holland