The northern white rhino are one of the two subspecies of white rhino that once roamed the areas of Uganda, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 1960, around 2,000 survived in the wild but quickly reached critically endangered status in the 1980s from growing demand for their horn from China and Vietnam and were poached intensively.
The last surviving population was in Garamba National Park but perished when the area became a conflict zone and the staff were pulled out for their safety. By 2010, no rhinos were known to exist in the wild and less than a dozen survived in zoos but have shrunked to four in 2015. By November, it shrunk to three when Nola, a 41 year old female from San Diego Zoo was euthanised from failing health. There are only three of them left ( one male named Sudan and two females, Najin and Fatu ) and all came from the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic. All of them were unable to breed. They were both transported to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy om December 20, 2009 and heavily guarded 24/7. A group of scientists from the United States, Germany, Italy, and Japan on a last approach to help the population will removed the last eggs from the females and using advanced reproductive techniques like stem technology and IVF will create embryos and inserted them into their closest relatives, the southern white rhinos as surrogate mothers. No has ever successfully use IVF on any rhino species so this will be a world first. But the problem is one of the females is elderly and the other is known to have uternine problem so it might affect the reproductive process. If this happens, then cells will be taken from frozen rhino tissue and will be turned into stem cells. The stem cells will then be turned into sperm and egg embryos. |
Nola, a 41 year old female that lives in the San Diego Zoo since 1989 was put down from failing health
Sudan, the last male thought to be 42 years old suffered from low sperm count
Najin, a 26 year old daughter of Sudan who has leg injuries hindering the mating process
Fatu, daughter of Najin who suffers from uterine problems
Sunni, a 34 year old male, found dead in his enclosure on October 17, 2014
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