Image courtesy of BioRescue/Rio the photographer.Īccording to Thomas Hildebrandt, chair of wildlife reproduction medicine at Freie Universität Berlin, the years-long efforts to produce a calf may soon come to fruition. Scientists harvest their eggs every three to four months, then airlift them to the Avantea lab in Italy, where they are processed and stored.

Najin and Fatu, the last two remaining northern white rhinos on the planet, are housed at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. By contrast, even minor errors during rhino ovum pickup procedure can kill the patient, compounding the already considerable risk of putting a 1,700-kilogram (3,750-pound) wild animal under anesthesia. In humans, egg retrieval is a relatively simple procedure with little risk of complications many women are in surgery for fewer than 15 minutes. The veterinary term for egg retrieval is “ovum pickup,” a technique that was first developed for cows and other large livestock. In the most recent cycle, researchers decided not to collect eggs from Najin, the elder of the two rhinos, due to her age and the condition of her remaining eggs. Scientists harvest their eggs every three to four months, then airlift them to the Avantea lab in Cremona, where they are processed and stored. Najin and Fatu, the last two remaining northern white rhinos on the planet, are housed at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, where they were moved in 2009 from the Dvůr Králové zoo. In theory, calf development should proceed similarly, allowing researchers to buck nature and produce offspring from a subspecies with no reproductively capable females. Proof of conceptīioRescue has a bold strategy: implant the northern white rhino embryos into females of the southern white rhino ( Ceratotherium simum simum), a closely related subspecies that has the same gestational period as its northern cousin. Image courtesy of BioRescue/Rio the photographer. BioRescue announced the creation of the three embryos in July, bringing the total northern white rhino embryos to 12. Others argue that the last-ditch efforts might mean we have already failed. Some scientists believe that the innovations pioneered by BioRescue and other groups might offer hope not just for the northern white but for other rhino species as well. All other embryos to date have been created with sperm from a northern white rhino bull named Suni. Notably, one of the embryos was created using genetic material from a male rhino named Angalifu, whose sperm was previously thought to be too low in quality to produce viable offspring, adding vital genetic diversity to the pool of embryos. The announcement marks a major achievement for the subspecies, which has only two remaining members: a mother-daughter pair who are both incapable of carrying a calf.

Though only a few cells in size, the embryo, one of three produced this spring, represents hope for the virtually extinct northern white rhinoceros ( Ceratotherium simum cottoni).īioRescue - a consortium made up of Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in Germany Safari Park Dvůr Králové in the Czech Republic the Kenya Wildlife Service and Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya - announced the creation of the embryos in July, bringing the total northern white rhino embryos to 12. Shortly after, lab technicians plunged it into liquid nitrogen, freezing the creature’s development by rapidly bringing its temperature to −196° Celsius (-321° Fahrenheit). Not in the usual way, but on a clear microscope slide in a sterile lab in Cremona, Italy, thousands of miles from the creature’s ancestral territory in sub-Saharan Africa. In early July, the ephemeral promise of a new life blinked into existence.

Researchers and stakeholders are assessing whether it would be possible to employ similar methods to preserve genetic diversity in critically endangered Asian rhino species, weighing the risks of extracting eggs against the need for a backup plan.

Project leader Thomas Hildebrandt said he hopes to transfer a northern white rhino embryo into a female southern white rhino by the end of the year.

In July, BioRescue announced the creation of three new northern white rhino embryos, bringing the total to 12.

White rhinoceros conservation status