Crisis talks called to save rare rhino from extinction

Conservationists and scientists met in Kenya this week to come up with a last ditch plan to save the northern white rhinoceros from extinction, and they believe IVF may be the solution. There are only five northern white rhinos left on the planet. Three live in a 700-acre enclosure on the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in central Kenya, where the meeting took place, while the other two are kept in zoos in the U.S. and the Czech Republic. Northern whites lost their traditional rangelands in Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan to decades of disruption and civil war. Poachers have also taken their toll, killing the animals for their horn.

The battle is to work out what is feasible scientifically in the short time still available to us.

Richard Vigne, chief executive of Ol Pejeta

The remaining northern white rhinos are all elderly or incapable of natural reproduction, so artificial methods are now the only hope. The embryo could be implanted in the womb of a surrogate southern white rhino, a closely related rhinoceros subspecies less endangered. Past attempts at artificial insemination of northern whites, carried out at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic, have failed. Surrogacy is untested.

This is the most endangered species of large animal on the planet. The chances are we’re going to witness the demise of a species. That’s the reality. They’re going to die here.

Richard Vigne

Science rhino