New embryos raise hopes for endangered rhino species
By Story Agencies, July 20, 2023Five new northern white rhino embryos have been created by a team in Kenya working to save the species from extinction.
BioRescue said they had been produced from 18 eggs collected in May from Fatu, one of two surviving northern white rhinos.
She and her mother Najin live at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in central Kenya. They were born in a zoo in Czech Republic but were transferred to their natural habitat in 2009.
“Four years since the start of this ambitious project to save the northern white rhino from extinction, the BioRescue consortium has made significant progress towards its ultimate aim,” the project, funded by the German education ministry, said on Facebook.
“The sperm for fertilisation came from two different bulls, thereby improving genetic diversity.”
BioRescue said it was the highest number of embryos created to date from any egg collection, which is a complicated and dangerous process.
This brings the number of embryos created so far to 29. They are cryopreserved, a process that stores them at very low temperatures, in preparation for future transfer to surrogate southern white rhino mothers.
This is because neither Fatu nor Najin are able to carry a pregnancy.
According to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, the BioRescue team has made another promising step towards saving the species by selecting two wild southern white rhino females as potential surrogate mothers.
Attempts in the past to put embryos in southern white rhinos in zoos have failed.
“A huge congratulations to the team for their phenomenal dedication and hard work that has made this all possible,” the conservancy said. While it is a race against time to save the northern white rhino, the southern white rhino is also under threat, with just 18,000 of them left in the wild.