"Sun Bath" – Mosaïcultures Internationales de Montréal, Botanical Garden, Montréal, Québec

"Sun Bath" is a mosaiculture sculpture of a water buffalo presented by Thailand.

According to the interpretive panel accompanying the work, water buffaloes are animals both rare and plentiful On the one hand, there are an estimated 170 million water buffaloes on the planet. Yet, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, these animals are on the endangered animal list. The paradox is explained by the fact that there are only some 4,000 wild water buffalo left, located in Southeast Asia.

The gene pools of feral and domestic water buffaloes gradually diverged since the time humans began raising the animal 5,000 years ago. Today, domestic water buffaloes are smaller than wild ones and have distinctive coats and horns. Extirpated from Laos and Vietnam, it is now rare in Thailand. At most, there are only about 50 in the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary. Poaching is one threat to wild water buffaloes; the proximity of their domestic cousins is another. The latter carry diseases and could also permanently change the gene pool of the species if wild and domestic animals were to interbreed.

Wild water buffaloes have two huge saber-like horns on either side of their heads, with a tip-to-tip span of more than 2 meters. In Thailand and Cambodia, water buffalo horns are rather straight, while those in India curve inward.

For a description of the art of Mosaiculture and of the Mosaïcultures Internationales de Montréal competition, please turn to the first photo in this series at:

www.ipernity.com/doc/jonathan.cohen/33872015