THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A southern white rhino that became pregnant through artificial insemination increases hopes that a nearly extinct close relative, the northern white rhino, can be saved.
News that the female southern white rhino named Victoria was pregnant was seen as a breakthrough and a step toward saving the northern white rhino species. If Victoria is able to carry the calf to term, it will be born in mid-2019.
The world’s last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died in March 2018 at Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy, his home for 10 years after being transferred from a zoo in the Czech Republic. Sudan was 45 years old and had been in ailing health.
Sudan’s death was seen as a tragedy, because it marked the possible end of a species. Reproductive options for producing a northern white rhino include artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer, with the southern white rhinos possibly serving as surrogates for northern white rhino embryos.
Researchers think that a northern white rhino calf could be born from these procedures within 10 to 15 years.
Kenya is home to the last remaining northern white rhinos, Sudan’s daughter, Najin, and granddaughter, Fatu. The second-to-last male northern white rhino, Suni, died in 2014. Suni also had been brought back to Africa from the Czech Republic. Sudan and Suni were too old to mate by the time they left Europe.
A team at Ol Pejeta also is working on a different project that seeks to save the northern white rhino from extinction. The plan is to harvest eggs from the two remaining northern white females. The animals cannot be artificially inseminated because they are infertile. Scientists intend to use an Ol Pejeta southern white rhino as a surrogate for northern white rhino eggs.