The Opportunity Cost of Extinction: Why Saving Two May Doom Many

The Conservation Triage Crisis Conservation biology faces an impossible choice: limited resources force us to decide which species live and which die. The northern white rhino represents the extreme case—only two females remain, making the subspecies functionally extinct. Meanwhile, the Javan rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus) persists with approximately 76 individuals in Indonesia's Ujung Kulon National Park, and the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis)—often called "the forgotten endangered species"—clings to survival with fewer than 50 individuals across fragmented habitats .