Scientists say they have achieved a “milestone” in the effort to save the critically endangered northern white rhinoceros. According to information on Wednesday, researchers from the Biorescue project managed to successfully insert an embryo created through artificial insemination into a rhinoceros for the first time. It is therefore a southern white rhinoceros in which an embryo of the same species was inserted.
However, according to the researchers, this technique could also help its northern relative in the future, of which there are only two females left. The southern white rhinoceros embryo was created in vitro from eggs and sperm and transferred to a surrogate mother in Kenya in September. The rhinoceros was pregnant for 70 days before it died of a bacterial infection. The male embryo, which was more than six centimeters tall, was well developed. “We have achieved something that was not thought possible,” said project leader Thomas Hildebrandt to journalists in Berlin. The fertilization of a southern white rhinoceros with an embryo of the same species is a “milestone” on the way to helping the critically endangered northern cousins.
Since 2019, the Biorescue conservation program has produced 30 northern white rhinoceros embryos and preserved them in liquid nitrogen, where they await transfer to surrogate mothers. In the next step of the ambitious breeding program, scientists want to attempt to transfer the embryo of a northern white rhinoceros into a surrogate mother of the closely related southern species. The reproductive program is the animals’ last chance for survival. None of the remaining northern white rhinos – mother Najin and daughter Fatu – are capable of giving birth. The last male, named Sudan, died in 2018 at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, where Najin and Fatu live under 24-hour guard to protect them from poachers. In addition, cells from twelve different northern white rhinos are stored in liquid nitrogen.
Watch the video: Cute rhino offspring – Paco enchants zoo visitors in Augsburg.
According to Hildebrandt, the research team set itself the goal of producing northern white rhinoceros calves “in the next two to two and a half years.” It could also take longer. According to the expert, the technology could also serve as a model for other endangered rhino species, such as the Sumatran rhino in Southeast Asia. Rhinos have very few natural predators, but their numbers have been decimated by poaching since the 1970s. It is estimated that more than a million remained in the wild until the mid-19th century. The BioRescue project, led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, develops and tests technologies to improve the breeding success of southern white rhinos in human care and to save the northern white rhino from extinction.
