The future of the Northern White Rhino is hanging by a thread. Only two species are left in the world, both females, Najin and Fatu. However, scientists are working day and night to develop a plan that will save them from extinction.
In 2009, there were only four northern white rhinos, two male and two female. The four northern white rhinos were brought to Olpajeta conservancy, their natural habitat, in a bid to get them to breed. Nonetheless, it did not work. The four rhinos mated, but Najin and Fatu failed to give birth. Over the past 13 years, we have lost the two males. The first was Suni, a 34-year-old rhino who died in 2014 due to natural causes. The second is Sudan, the 45-year-old who died years later due to wounds on his skin that would not heal. His muscles and bones, too had degenerated. Najin and Fatu are now the only remaining white rhinos in the world, and non can carry a pregnancy.
Collecting the sperms and eggs
Despite Najin and Fatu’s inability to carry a pregnancy, scientists worldwide are hopeful of saving the species. Over the years, they have developed an extraordinary scheme. Their scheme involves using preserved sperm collected from Suni and Sudan and other northern male white rhinos before they died. The sperms were collected with the aim of artificially inseminating the females, including the southern white rhinos. However, the insemination attempts have failed. After the failed attempts, scientists have moved to try to make an embryo in the lab. This trial has led to the creation of another challenge: getting hold of the egg from the female northern white rhino. Getting the eggs proved difficult since the eggs are stored 1.5m inside the female rhino. This led to the creation of an instrument that would collect the eggs by Dr. Hildebrandt.
The equipment is a tube that enters through the anus and has a long delicate needle at the end, designed to puncture the ovary follicle where the eggs are stored. The needle is connected to a suction device that will suck the egg down the long tube. The instrument is to be operated with utmost precision since an individual can puncture a huge blood vessel leading to the rhino’s death. In 2019, Dr Hilderbrandt managed to collect 19 eggs from Najin and Fatu.
Creating the embryo
The preceding step was to fertilize the egg with sperm, pioneered by Cesari Galli, an IVF expert. Cesare is based in Avantea private lab in Italy. Soon as Dr. Hildebrandt had collected the eggs, they were rushed from Kenya to Italy. Through trial and error, Dr. Galli had perfected his method of collecting sperms and creating embryos from the Samaritan and southern white rhino species. He would electrocute the egg to get it and the sperm to form an embryo. His practice paid off. After receiving the first delivery of eggs in August 2019, he managed to make two embryos and one more embryo after the second delivery. The embryos are preserved in his lab. To grow the embryo, a womb was required; neither Najin nor Fatu was suitable.
The 19-year-old Fatu had never had a calf despite mating. When vets gave her an ultrasound, they found that Fatu had no lining in her Uterus; thus, she would not carry a pregnancy to full term. On the other hand, Najin, Fatu’s 30-year-old mother, had weak hind legs, an issue common with female rhinos due to progesterone that changes their legs’ dynamic. On occasion, she fell while pregnant; getting her up would be difficult, and that would be her end. Since the scientists were not ready to take that risk, they planned to use the southern white rhinos as surrogates.
Implanting the embryos
The attempts to put embryos on the southern white rhinos have failed. Dr. Galli noted that there is much they don’t know about the rhinos’ reproductive system and thus would keep doing more research. Scientists have been working on finding the best timing to implant the embryo. Scientists have noted that they need to know when the rhino’s body is ready for it to attach the embryo to the uterus lining.
According to Dr. Galli, not all animals have menstrual cycles. Some animals, including cats, release their eggs when they mate. Thus they decided to use sexual intercourse as an indicator of increasing the chances of the surrogate carrying the pregnancy after they implant the embryo after sex. To make their hunch possible, four female southern white rhinos have been enclosed in their natural habitats not far from the two remaining northern white rhinos. The next step is to put a sterilized southern male white rhino with the would-be surrogates. Once the bull is spotted mounting, the rhino is ready; thus, they would dart the female and put the embryo in.
In December 2020, the bio-rescue team confirmed the successful sterilization of the southern white rhino bull Owuan. The bull will now be introduced to the Ol Pejeta southern white rhino females that have been identified as potential surrogate mothers for future northern white rhino offspring.
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