Last Chance
for
Flute (doubling on alto flute) and Piano
I
- Prelude
II - Portrait of the Northern White Rhinoceros
III - Scherzo for the Kakapo
IV - Lament for the Yangtze River Dolphin
V - Postlude
"Last
Chance" is inspired by the book "Last Chance to See" by Mark Carwardine
and Douglas
Adams.
The composition consists of a Prelude, Postlude, and
musical portrayals of three animals encountered in "Last Chance to
See":
the Northern White Rhinoceros, the Kakapo, and the Baiji (which
is also known as the Yangtze River Dolphin).
.
The
Northern White Rhinoceros is critically endangered due to poaching.
Almost wiped out in the 1970s,
the population rebounded to around 30 by
2000, thanks to careful conservation. Unfortunately, it is now believed
to be
extinct in the wild, with under 10 remaining in captivity. The
Northern White Rhinoceros is not actually white - it's gray.
The name
is derived from the word "weit", meaning "wide." Smell is the strongest
sense for these rhinos;
their eyesight is used much in the way we use
secondary senses.
The
Kakapo is the world's largest and rarest parrot, and used to be native
to New Zealand.
Originally, the main inhabitants of New Zealand were
birds: they were the only type of animal able to reach the island.
Because of this, the kakapo had no predators, and the ability to eat a
lot at one time was more important than the ability to fly,
which the
kakapo eventually lost. That said, the kakapo does not always realize
it can't fly, and occasionally will fall gracelessly out of a tree!
Unfortunately, when humans eventually inhabited New Zealand, they
brought other animals with them,
and the kakapo was suddenly faced with
predators and no defense mechanisms. Another interesting evolutionary
quirk
of the kakapo is its mating ritual. The male kakapo will dig out
a bowl in the forest: against a rock or some other place with good
acoustics.
He will proceed to "boom", during which he makes a
low-frequency noise by inflating and deflating air sacs.
The goal of
this is to attract females, but a characteristic of low-frequency
noises is that it is nearly impossible to find where they are coming
from.
This is just one of the many obstacles which face mating kakapos:
because there were no predators, it was in their evolutionary best
interest
to reproduce extremely slowly. Between this and their complete
lack of defense mechanisms, the kakapo is extremely unsuited
to live in
the world it has recently been thrust into. At the time Carwardine and
Adams wrote the book, barely 30 remained,
all of which had been moved
to nearby Codfish Island (an island devoid of predators). Due to good
funding, public awareness,
and tireless conservation efforts, the
kakapo has now rebounded: around 130 are currently living.
The
Yangtze River Dolphin, or Baiji, is a tragic story: as China became
more industrialized, the Yangtze River
became progressively murkier,
and the dolphins lost the ability to see. Their eyes atrophied, and
they had to turn to echolocation
in order to navigate through the
river. With the invention of the motorboat, the Yangtze became
permeated with underwater noise,
and the dolphins' echolocation became
worthless as well. Countless baiji died either from being tangled in
fishing lines
or being hit by the boats which they were no longer able
to see or hear. A conservation effort temporarily helped,
but when the
Chinese began construction of the Three Gorges Dam, any hope of success
was extinguished.
The baiji is now believed to be extinct.