‘It’s poacher,’ said the mouse. ‘There behind that tree!’
Poacher had come for ivory.
Since 1999 the number of Gruffalo in the wild has dropped alarmingly until now there are only estimated to be two remaining. An adult male, and his child. Protected as they are now by conservation laws there is a desperate search to find more as there are thought to be, in the traditional feeding grounds of Hampstead and Belsize Park. Until then the two identified are being watched round the clock but ever and with care so they do not suspect.
Gruffalo ivory fetches tremendous prices, more so as it grow scarce. Poachers shoot an adult (weighing upwards of 500 lbs), leaving all else behind. They have no use for terrible claws. They only take the terrible teeth in their terrible jaws. They leave knobbly knees and turned out toes. They have no use for orange eyes, they leave their tongues black. There is no known use for the purple prickles all over the back. Gruffalo without the poachers were already endangered, living as they do entirely on a diet of mouse, on a slice of bread. And they’ve never mastered how to make bread.
And baby Gruffalo taste like cake.
It is sad to see the decline of the Gruffalo. Alas, this follows in the wake of the total extinction of the Gingerbread Men - albeit an extinction partially brought about by hubris, and the oft-quoted boast "you can't catch me". Determined Gingerbread Man hunters have now proved the little chaps wrong on too many encounters.
ReplyDeleteConfectionary rarely learns. Whilst it is true that gingerbread was both swift and cunning enough to evade trap and ambush, the development of the Stroke-Bertie (hand pump) Harpoonete in 1903 put paid to that.
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