Vigne says, “Once the IVF technique has been developed the challenge will be to replicate the process on the two remaining northern white females at Ol Pejeta.”
#New southern white rhino trial
With just two surviving female northern white rhinos the decision to initially trial the new IVF protocol on southern white rhinos therefore makes perfect sense. They now number in excess of 20,000, albeit in game reserves and protected areas. At one point less than a hundred were left. In what could now, with hindsight, be seen as a conservation success story the southern white rhino itself was on the brink of extinction a little more than a century ago. “As we speak trials are going on to develop IVF protocols in southern white rhinos, the closest living relative of the northern counterpart,” says Vigne. The process is akin to sailing into uncharted waters, as IVF has never before been tried with a rhino. The call to action has spread worldwide, with scientists and genetic experts gathering recently in Vienna to pool together their knowledge in the hope of finding a solution. They’re criminals, pure and simple, and will use any method to achieve their aims.”įaced with a seemingly impossible situation for the northern white rhino, the team at Ol Pejeta is pinning hopes on a revolutionary form of IVF (in-vitro fertilisation). As Vigne puts it, “They have no scruples. Rhino horn, for these people, is simply another revenue stream. The reality too is that criminal gangs who feed the illegal trade in rhino horn across Africa and Asia are the same gangs that traffic drugs and people. Rhino horn is keratin – the same substance that forms fingernails.
#New southern white rhino full
“The people who demand and consume rhino horn must take full responsibility for the poaching pressure that rhinos face. “This is all about education,” explains Vigne. With rhino horn demanding ever-increasing bounties, particularly in the Far East where it’s mistakenly perceived as having medicinal properties and attributed among other things as being a cure for cancer, there is a seemingly insatiable demand. Rhino populations in particular have suffered massively, not only at the loss of their natural environment, but also at the hands of poachers.
If we continue at the current rate, it doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out the end result. It is estimated that in the past 40 years alone more than 40 per cent of the world’s wildlife has been lost, and humans are largely to blame. According to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), destruction of natural habitats and the illegal wildlife trade are the root causes. Across the planet we’re experiencing extinction events on an unprecedented scale. The northern white rhino is just one of many species on the brink. The team at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, headed by CEO Richard Vigne, is determined not to give up the fight. Yet somehow, in this most tragic of scenarios, there is a glimmer of hope. Sudan is too old to mate with the two remaining females Fatu and Najin, and so, you would think, the story ends there. As things stand, we’re witnessing the extinction of the species. With the death of Nola, a 41-year-old female, at San Diego Zoo in November 2015, three remain, all living at Ol Pejeta. Until recently there were just four northern white rhinos left in the world. At the grand old age of 42, Sudan has already exceeded the average life span for the species by seven years. His name is Sudan and such is the continuing threat from poachers that this gentle creature lives under 24-hour armed guard.
The Last Stand of the Northern White Rhino, NairobiĢ4 January 2016 Oi Pejeta Conservancy is home to the last male northern white rhino on the planet.
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