Miniature Owl Painting & African Conservation

This piece is one of my new miniature watercolor paintings – completed about a week and a half ago or so. It is 5×7 and of a great horned owl – titled “sentinel”. While painting this miniature, I noticed that haven’t painted too many owls in a while. I think I might paint a few more of them soon. :)

I sent this piece to debut at an exhibition of wildlife art in England, near London. It was a part of The Wildlife Art Society International’s annual exhibition of art in Kent. The exhibition was held at the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park, a wildlife conservation center that helps to restore a number endangered species in the wild through reintroduction.

One of the species that the park is trying to restore is the Rhino. I was very disturbed to hear earlier this fall that the West African subspecies of the black rhino, once listed as critically endangered, appears to now be extinct in the wild.

Researchers, on their latest trip to wildlife refuges in northern Cameroon, Africa, where the last of these creatures had been tracked, could not find any trace of the animals. Poaching for medicinal trade purposes and trophies, sadly, are suspected to be the primary reasons for the West African Rhino’s demise.

It angers me that beautiful creatures are illegally hunted to extinction for such a poor and pathetic purpose, robbing the rest of the world and all future generations from ever being able to see these magnificent animals as they once were. It is something that we can never get back. When a species disappears, it disappears forever.