Embryo transfer brings hope of averting extinction of white rhinos
White Via Northern Protection Tony Female And File Remain, Just Two Images Reservation — Photo: Najin Infertile Fatu Hour (right) Karumba/afp And Are Getty Kenya Armed Conservation 24 Under (left) At In — A Rhinos
The critically endangered northern white rhino could be saved from the brink of extinction after scientists performed the first successful embryo transfer in white rhinos.
After the last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died in 2018, the disappearance of the species looked imminent. Just two infertile female northern white rhinos — Fatu and Najin — remain, and are under 24-hour armed protection at a conservation reservation in Kenya.
But a new scientific advancement means the mother and daughter may not be the last of their kind.
An international team of researchers from BioRescue — a consortium, backed by the German government, which aims to halt extinctions — has performed the first successful embryo transfers in southern white rhinos, paving the way for the technique to be used for their rarer northern counterparts.
In September 2023, scientists transferred two southern white rhino embryos into surrogates at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, resulting in a successful pregnancy. While commonly used in humans, horses and cows, the method had never been used in rhinos before.
The father and the pregnant mother died after contracting a rare, unrelated bacterial infection when the foetus was 70 days old, but researchers said the pregnancy was proof that the technique can work.
Thomas Hildebrandt, the BioRescue project head and a professor at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, said the technique was a key step in saving the northern white rhino.
“This little baby is the proof of everything. The sperm injection, the fertilisation, the liquid nitrogen, the thawing — this was never done before for rhinos. All of it could have failed.”
For the process to have worked in rhinos represented a major breakthrough, he said. By May or June this year, scientists plan to implant the first northern white rhino embryo.
The Northern rhino embryos were created using sperm gathered from two now-dead males, and eggs gathered from Fatu. They will be carried by a southern white rhino surrogate in Kenya. Just 30 embryos remain — stored in liquid nitrogen at -196C in Berlin, Germany and Cremona, Italy.
The surrogate rhino is injected with the embryo through its anus. If the 16-month pregnancy is successful, it would be the first northern white rhino born since 2000. It could also pave the way for the conservation of the Sumatran rhino, which number about 40 in the wild.
Researchers said they would perform more embryo transfers if the first pregnancy seemed to be going well, meaning that as many as six northern white rhino calves could be born in a short period. Scientists said it would be important for the calves to meet Fatu and Najin while the pair were still alive, to learn how to behave like a northern white rhino.
Even if several northern white rhino calves are born, however, they will not be genetically diverse enough to produce a viable population, Mr Hildebrandt said. The 30 surviving northern white rhinos embryos are all based on eggs from Fatu and sperm from two males.
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- Guardian