How can we save the northern white rhinos?

Northern white rhinos come from central Africa. Today only two rhinos, Najin and Fatu, live there. They are the last of their species.

The species is considered near-extinct since it can no longer reproduce naturally.

This is challenging because they are heavy, large animals.

They had to perfect the method of obtaining eggs and growing embryos in the laboratory.

The procedure was first tested on southern white rhinos. These are similar to the northern ones, but there are more of them, so they do not lack biological material.

It took thirteen attempts to successfully implant a southern rhinoceros embryo into a surrogate mother.

Unfortunately, it died prematurely due to an infection.

So the next step is to re-implant the embryo of the northern white rhino into the surrogate mother of the southern one.

They will try this in the coming months.

When the first calf is born, it will be a great success, yet it will not be a solution for the species. To do this we would need a lot of calves to be born within the shortest possible time – while Najin and Fatu are still alive. The mothers would need to teach the culture of the northern white rhinos to the babies.

Maja Prijatelj Videmšek, journalist

So far the BioRescue project has created 30 white rhino embryos.

The plan is that they would be inserted into several surrogates at the same time.

“Even once we have many new northern white rhinos, the future of the species will be bleak if we do not provide it with a suitable natural environment and coexistence with humans,” adds Maja Prijatelj Videmšek.

Glossary

An embryo is an early developmental stage from a fertilized egg cell of a developing organism.

A surrogate mother is a female who carries and gives birth to a baby for another mother who is not able to carry and birth her own.

Points to Consider

1. What do rhinos eat?
2. What is artificial insemination?
3. Where else can we find rhinos?

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The original version of this article was published on 3^rd April.