Current status of Northern White Rhino

European zoo fans should make plans and visit Dvur Kralove Zoo soon!

Old female Nabire there is the last Northern White Rhino in Europe. When the remaining six old animals die, the subspecies will be extinct, and you can tell your children and grandchildren that you saw extinct animal. At Dvur Kralove, you can see three rhino forms at once (Nabire lives with two southern whites and there are eastern blacks on the neighboring paddock). And the zoo is very good besides it, too!

 

It's important to have lots of specimen and have them over as long a time period as possible, so we can compare them an understand if they have changed.

Without extensive collections of eggs then the link between DDT and raptor decline might have taken a lot longer. You couldn't have learnt that from just DNA.

I don't agree that every zoo animal that dies has to be preserved, but with something this significant then it's important.

 

A nice summation.

BTW: we have all known that it has been 5 past 12 for the species Ceratotherium cottoni for some time now. The Kenya project really is a last ditch attempt to save it while it is still with us.

 

Yes, in this case I believe they should try and preserve as much DNA and sperm as they can to be kept at San Diego's Frozen Zoo.

~Thylo

 

It's unclear how long Suni was dead before being discovered, so his sperm cells could deteriorate before being extracted, and I think it's unlikely for any cryo-preservation equipment to be present in Ol Pejeta, as well as freezers large enough to fit the precious rhino.
Speaking about cloning, the success rate will be ALWAYS lower for species with larger body size and longer embryonic development period, and embryo transplantation in pachyderms is too complicated. So we need a huge amount of SW rhino surrogate mothers to produce just one viable NW specimen (with perfect odds to die before reaching sexual maturity).

 

Some quick opinions, I'll be quick because dinner is at rapidly getting cold (lemon chicken breast and italian style mushrooms with a potato and some celery sticks, mmm!)

Angalifu, in San Diego has made many donations to the sperm bank. There are also plans to get him some Southern White Rhino girls but he has no idea what he is doing.

According to this video on the prestigious internet at least.



Those females in Kenya have been given a Southern White Rhino for breeding purposes.

Plan B for Breeding is Looking Up! | Ol Pejeta Conservancy

Male Southern White Rhino Introduced in Endangered Species Boma | Ol Pejeta Conservancy

Plan B for Breeding is Looking Up! | Ol Pejeta Conservancy

Samples of Suni's tissue must be preserved for cloning and and other research purposes in my opinion. Maybe we could even find a way in the future to manufacture sperm using his DNA codes and nothing else. I think such technology is definitely a future possibility.

 

Personally speaking, this is a fascinating bit of recent history. I would love to read more.

I remember first hearing about this, like, a decade or two ago ( I don't remember exactly when), while visiting San Diego's Wild Animal Park. While I had hoped to be party to an eventual success story, it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

I suppose we can now consider the subspecies to be functionally extinct?

 

@ Buldeo : as long as there are male and female specimens of a species which could breed - which is the case ! - there is hope and I would consider the species NOT being functionally extinct !

 

Yes, given that all individuals are old and either determined to be infertile by ultrasound or failed to breed or several years in optimum conditions. It is about as certain as the subspecies can be called functionally extinct.

 

I'm as hopeful as the next guy, but the lone(?) male is now 40 and the remaining females are all similarly aged. Even if he could rediscover the lost vigor of his youth, you'd get another generation before we have the same problem all over again. Which then raises the issue of inbreeding and we have a genetic bottleneck like the cheetah. Unfortunately I don't think there's a breeding population on double secret probation anywhere.

That's what I figured. It was pointed out to me in a biology class several years ago that extinct doesn't always mean zero. Sometimes it means that there aren't enough individuals to propagate the species.

Now I need to hope that San Diego's pair will hang in there a little while longer until I can do the jeep caravan.

 

You don't have to do the caravan tours to see them of course, they are visible from the African tram safari.

 

I know. I've seen them several times over the years, but I have never done one of the caravan tours. Seems like a good time as any to rectify that.

 

Still hope ?! :
Assisted reproduction may save northern white rhinos - PRAGUE POST | The Voice of Prague

 

In the future we may well have the ability of manufacture gametes like eggs and sperm from other cells, maybe even with DNA from dead animals, I know that they managed to make mouse sperm for mice using other body cells somehow, hopefully there might be the option to do that in the future. My idea is that we could bypass cloning a whole animal and just manufacture egg and sperm cells. Possibly we might be able to get good genetic material from preserved hides and horns of rhinos. That is my thought.

Obviously this is hypothetical, but with all the advances we have had in reproductive technology in recent years we might someday find ourselves living in a world where is isn't so far fetched.

 

Why would you want to bypass cloning an animal if cloning and then breeding numbers back up is the ultimate goal?

~Thylo

 

Maybe it would be more efficient to just create offspring of that animal rather than go though the trouble of building that animal up again. It might save time and resources. It might be less trouble just to manufacture gametes if time or money are limited rather than grow a whole new animal and then have it reproduce. Instead of cloning the whole animal, we could clone its sperm or eggs.

It might be a way to cheat time if say, we have a female who would be good but to breed with this animal but she will be too old to breed by the time the clone reaches breeding age. It could cut years off the time it would take to get a calf, or even make a calf possible when there wouldn't have been one otherwise. That way we could skip and fancy procedures to keep her fertile, or saving her ova (which is by no means a perfect science, and is harder than sperm preservation), or the trouble of embryo transfer (not that I don't feel it has its place). That said I am in favor of natural breeding whenever possible.

 

I recognize it is the last straw, but if this would work to save the northern rhino what the hell!

If you have not tried, you can never win! And if you think it is the end you and just throw the towel, it is the easy cop out. If that is your line when the chips are down you might as well finish yourself here and now.

It is heartening that three organizations - Dvur Kralove, Ol Pejeta and IZW - are fighting this battle to save the northern white rhino. This were other organizations and individuals have stood idly by … and just let it happen (go extinct in Garamba, DR Congo).

 

Rest in Peace Angalifu, at least you weren't poached.

Northern white rhino dies in US zoo, 5 left in the world - Washington Times

 

At a time when I'm becoming increasingly aware that the possibility of 'functional extinction' being near or low genetic diversity sometimes can doom a species that isn't yet extinct, it's refreshing to see some attempt to keep the Northern White Rhinoceros.