The subspecies was on the verge of extinction due to decades of poaching and civil wars in its habitat in Central Africa. On August 24, the documentary film “The Last Running: New Hope”, which talks about the struggle for the salvation of the northern white rhino, was released at National Geographic.
The film begins with the last sighs of the male rhino named Sudan. In 2018, the animal was euthanized at the age of 45 due to poor health, leaving the 36-year-old female Nadzhin and her 25-year-old daughter Fatu with the last representatives of her subspecies on earth.
Attempts to preserve this subspecies include extracorporeal fertilization (IVF), during which sperm, obtained from males to their death, is united with eggs received from the veil. Nadzhin is not healthy enough to provide eggs. This year, the BioRescue Consortium, which works on the salvation of rhinos, conducted three collection of eggs. In total, the team managed to get 38 embryos of the northern white rhino.
Both females cannot bear offspring due to health problems, so the team uses as surrogate mothers of closely related southern white rhinos. The film notes that this is the first such experience – before nothing of the kind was done.
The film says that at the end of 2023, a 13-year-old female of the southern white rhino named Kurra died of a bacterial infection. The autopsy showed that in its womb there is a 70-day fruit of the northern white rhino. This was the world's first pregnancy of the rhino conceived with the help of IVF.
The chief coordinator of BioRescue and the director of communications and international projects in the Safari Park of the Dvor-Carlov in the Czech Republic, Jan Stayskal, believes that the Eco Project may be valuable for working with other types in the future. However, the conduct of a complex medical procedure on such massive animals is fraught with great difficulties, including the calculation of the correct dosage of anesthesia when collecting eggs and ensuring the safety of scientists.
Not a single embryo of the northern white rhino has yet developed until a complete pregnancy. Nevertheless, Stayskal hopes that this will happen in the foreseeable future.
Context
Now in Africa and Asia five types of rhinos have been preserved. There are only about 17 thousand southern white rhinos, mainly in South Africa. The International Union of Nature Protection classifies them as a form close to a vulnerable position. There are species, the threat of the existence of which is much more. In Indonesia, according to the International Fund of rhinos, about 50 Javanese rhinos live. The number of individuals of the Sumatran rhino with two horns in the wild is less than 50.
