“We have a system where we can track the walkie talkies of the patrols. The world’s two remaining northern white rhinos live under the constant surveillance of 42 armed guards from the National Police Reservists. Najin and Fatu were born in captivity and brought to Kenya in 2009 from the Dvur Kralove Safari Park in the Czech Republic. The northern white rhino is endemic to swamp areas extending over Uganda, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Chad.Įxtensive poaching and civil war led to their near extinction. “The stem cell approach is needed because we need a gene pool large enough to create a solid, viable population of northern white rhinoceros,” said Hildebrandt, who has spent the last 20 years working with the northern white rhinos. Stem cell technology to save endangered species I collect blood and we will test for various parasites, bacterial and viral diseases.” “I have to observe their walking, their skin, check the eyes, teeth, feet or any wounds. Meanwhile in Kenya, Stephen Ngulu, the wildlife vet at the Ol Pejeta conservancy, told RFI that Najin and Fatu are scrupulously monitored. It will then be followed by a gestation period of 16 months. Hildebrandt hopes that it will happen before the end of 2020. The embryos are ready for transfer into surrogate southern white rhinos mothers. “So, our timeline for that is about three years from now,” he added.
#Northern white rhinoceros guards how to
“Our goal is to produce the first offspring of the northern white rhino with IVF technique as soon as possible so that this baby can learn how to be a northern white rhino from Najin and Fatu. Last year, in a unique procedure at the Ol Pejeta conservancy, his team managed to collect the eggs from Fatu and Najin, but only three embryos from Fatu’s eggs have managed to survive. Researchers conducted the oocyte collection using a specially designed probe guided by ultrasound. Hildebrandt, a veterinarian specialised in the reproduction of wild animals, hopes that the combined technology will help produce a viable population that could be released into the wild within 15 to 20 years. “This frozen semen allows us to do in vitro fertilisation and we hope to combine that approach together with groundbreaking stem cell technology.” “We have collected a lot of semen from four different northern white rhino bulls over the last 20 years,” says Professor Thomas Hildebrandt who heads the BioRescue project. The team of international scientists are using in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and stem cell technology for reproduction purposes. The efforts are pioneered by the BioRescue project at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in Germany. In order to save the species from extinction, scientists are working on artificial reproduction techniques which have never been attempted with rhinoceros before. Northern white rhino female Fatu is grazing on the meadow in their enclosure at Ol Pejeta Conservancy with Najin in the background.
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