![]() ![]() ![]() When a saola turns in profile, those two horns merge into one, giving it the appearance of a unicorn. The saola is distinguished by beautiful white cameo splashes on its muzzle, and beautiful bands of color on its tail and rump.īut what really makes it stand out are its long, nearly straight, tapered, and very sharply pointed horns. Its closest evolutionary relatives, and they’re not very close, are wild cattle. It has cloven hooves, is a ruminant and chews cud. Tell us about the saola-and how it connects with the myth of the unicorn. So right away he cast the saola in a magical aura. What really caught me, though, was that he said it was beautiful and enigmatic and so little was known about it. He went on to explain how new the saola was to the Western world. A fellow at the dinner where I gave my report called me when I was back in New Mexico and said, “How would you like to write about saola?” I said, “The what?” I had done some work in Borneo on a forest where ex-captive orangutans are reintroduced to the wild. It was a strange path to get to the story, actually. Your book is about a quest to find an animal you describe as “the embodiment of magic in nature.” What drew you to the story? Speaking from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, deBuys describes what made him want to learn more about the saola how his journey brought back memories of the Vietnam War years how poachers threaten to drive the saola to extinction and why the conservation of this rare creature matters to us all. ![]()
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