Can scientists save the functionally extinct Northern White Rhino species?
The northern white rhino species has been declared functionally extinct. The window period before the species is fully extinct is closing, as only two females remain in northern Kenya, Najin and Fatu. Najin is elderly and has health problems, Fatu is her daughter and although relatively young at 20 years, she cannot carry a calf to term. Scientists, spearheaded by a non-profit initiative, BioRescue, are on a mission to save the species by planting an embryo in a surrogate mother, Owuan, a southern white rhino. There are five embryos frozen in a storage facility that represent the last gasp hope for this species and BioRescue plan to have a calf on the ground to be raised by Najin and Fatu within the next 3 years.
Contents:
The Evolution of the Northern White Rhino
The Northern White Rhino is functionally extinct, how did this happen?
Where are Najin and Fatu? Ol Pejeta and the caretakers
Can science save the Northern White Rhino and other species?
How can I help save the Northern White Rhino from extinction?
Photo Credit: The Guardian
The Evolution of the Northern White Rhino
The rhinoceros is often referred to as a living dinosaur, but it is actually older than that. The evolutionary story dates back around 55 million years. At this time, the earth looked completely different. Europe was a cluster of year-round warm islands. There were a number of what would appear today as very strange creatures. It is so long ago that the evolution of the whale had not begun yet, as the wolflike carnivores that became whales were still yet to migrate towards the oceans and begin the slow process of metamorphosis. Rhinos were around at this time in quite a few forms, including species that looked like hippos and tapirs. A particularly eccentric ancestor of the northern white rhino around at this time was the ‘giraffe rhinoceros’, a particularly long-necked large cousin one might not be so pleased to cross paths with.
These differing forms of the species settled into the rhino we know today. A grey block-like structure of flesh and wrinkled, leathery skin, with one or two sharp horns and small, weak eyes, set on either side of their enormous heads. The white rhino (divided into the southern and northern species, indicating their geographic prevalence on the African continent) has a flat wide mouth for grass grazing. The black rhino, slightly smaller and the same shade of grey, has a pointer mouth for navigating small shrubs and trees, their preferred diet.
The fact the African rhino is divided into ‘white’ and ‘black’ species has nothing to do with colour. Rather, it is a result of British colonial mishearing. Afrikaaner (originally Dutch, also colonists) settlers called the white rhino ‘wilde’, meaning wide, referring to their flatter, wider, mouths. The British interpreted this incorrectly as white, and the name stuck. Black
The differences between a southern white rhino and northern white rhino are subtle, but they are a distinct species, having separated evolutionarily from around the ice age. The Northern white rhinos lived on marshy land, developing wider feet suited to the unstable ground, and hairier ears. Southern white rhinos lived on the open savannah and thus present small differences because of that distinction in the environment. The biggest difference today, however, is that the northern white rhino is functionally extinct, with only two females left on earth, and the southern white rhinos are thriving, at least by rhino standards. They were hunted to near extinction in the late 1800s, and amazingly, strict regulations protected them enough for resurgence in numbers.
Although they look dangerous, and are very intimidating in terms of sheer physical presence, they have always been peaceful vegans, concerned only with veggie munching and reproduction. For many millennia they did this exceptionally successfully. Without many predators, and not dependent on specific prey, they flourished across Asia, North America, Africa and Europe, until the 1800s. From then on, the rhino’s fate took a turn for the worse.
The Northern White Rhino is Functionally extinct, how did this happen?
It is not quite correct to say that rhinos have no predators, they have one very effective predator in the human. From primitive spears to long range rifles, we’ve always been excellent at killing them. Their horns are a coveted trophy, and were once used for decorative Yemeni dagger handles. The most devastating reason of all has been its alleged usefulness in medicine. Chinese herbal medicine dictates that rhino horn can be used for many ailments and marvels. Humans have unequivocally caused the functional extinction of the northern white rhino.
By the 1970s poaching had been so prevalent that the population of thousands was reduced to 700. 40 years ago, in the early-mid 1980s, only 15 northern white rhino remained in the wild. By 2008, there were none left in the wild, and only a handful in zoos and enclosures outside of Africa.
This is not a problem for only African rhino species. Rhinos are doing badly world over. The Java rhinoceros population numbers only 74. The Sumatran rhino population is at around 80. The black rhino is officially ‘critically endangered’ with over 6,487 remaining, many of whom live on the same conservancy as the last two northern white rhinos, Ol Pejeta in Kenya.
In 2009 the last remaining northern white rhinos, Sudan, Suni, Najin and Fatu, were located in the Dvûr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic. Northern white rhino had been at the zoo since the 1970s but had been poor reproducers and the numbers had been slowly dwindling. They were then sent back to Africa in 2009 in the hope that this return ‘home’ would inspire a resurgence in fertility.
Sadly, this was not the case. Rhinos carry only one calf at a time, and being huge mammals their pregnancy term is long. The white rhino species has the longest pregnancy of 16 - 18 months. Moreover, Najin and her daughter Fatu both have fertility problems. Najin is old, has a tumour in her stomach and faulty hind legs. Fatu is unable to carry a pregnancy to term.
Then the two males passed away. Suni was the first to go at a ripe age of 34 due to natural causes. Sudan’s death heralded a media frenzy. He was the first rhino to go ‘viral’ on social media in 2018 when at 45 he was euthanized because of wounds to his skin that would not heal. The infection had got so bad his muscles and bones degenerated.
A full year after Sudan’s death the United Nations issued a landmark report about mass extinction. The UN warned that around one million plant and animal species were at risk of imminent annihilation. The implications of this are horrific. The Anthropocene is the age of the great death of other species.
Photo Credit: Justin Mott
Where are Najin and Fatu? Ol Pejeta and the Caretakers
Najin and Fatu have their own 700 acre enclosure, guarded 24/7 by armed caretakers in the foothills of Mount Kenya, in northern Kenya. This enclosure is on Ol Pejeta, a former cattle ranch, now wildlife conservancy. Ol Pejeta, a non-profit sanctuary, is home to a number of endangered species, including the Grevy’s zebra, the reticulated giraffe, the cheetah and the black rhino. Nearby Najin and Fatu’s enclosure is a rhinoceros cemetery, where rhinos who have fallen victim to poaching since 2004 are buried and remembered. A tombstone for the female black rhino, Shemsha, reads, “shot dead with both horns removed”.
The poaching industry is a complex chain of desperate need, greedy demand and danger in supply. On the black market, rhino horn is worth more than gold. Sadly, the closer a species of rhino gets to extinction, the greater value their horn carries. No doubt some billionaire would love to place Najin’s horn on a mantlepiece. Although the brutal killing of rhino happens on the ground in African countries, the market for them is international and controlled by highly organised crime syndicates. Powdered rhino horn is used like a drug and aphrodisiac in Vietnam, and applied to a range of traditional medicines in China. The poachers in Africa risk their lives to obtain the horn, often leaving the rhino body mutilated and only half dead or drugged. Nevertheless, they see only a tiny fraction of the actual worth of the horn, and remain teetering on the edge of poverty, thus still part of the perpetual cycle of need in supply and demand.
Ironically, rhino horn is made up of keratin, the same protein which forms the basis of human hair and nails. Ground up into a powder, it is simply powdered keratin, available at your local pharmacy, or ingested regularly by the nail biters amongst us.
The caretakers at Ol Pejeta are Kenyans from relatively poor backgrounds and rural communities. They see rhino horn, and the value of a rhinos life completely differently poachers. Living nearby the enclosure in simply lodgings year round, these men spend more time with the rhinos than they do with their human families. They have deeply personal and emotional attachment to Najin and Fatu and treat them with indulgent tenderness. James Mwenda has been at Ol Pejeta for many years and clearly remembers a day three years before Sudan was euthanised: “I was standing out with him in the field, feeding him bananas. I enjoyed looking at his lovely face. I think he was feeling good. But then I looked at him and saw he was dropping tears. I know scientists say that rhinos do not cry. But I think maybe he was feeling empty. I laid my hands on him. After that day, I decided it was not about taking selfies with rhinos and making a photo about the last of the species. It’s about making meaning. I told Sudan I would become his voice when he was gone.”
Mwenda says he thinks a lot about Fatu and her responsibility as the youngest of the last of her kind. A time will come when there is only her. “This is her reality. She will bear the responsibility of being the last of her kind. She will be a symbol of political and human greed. That’s what her loneliness stands for. That is her work."
Photo Credit: Justin Mott
Can science sace the Northern White Rhino, and other species?
As much as Fatu is a symbol of our greed, she is also a symbol of the potential power of science and the preservation of species we have brought to the brink of extinction.
In 2012 Dr Thomas Hildebrandt founded BioRescue, an international collaboration of scientists, conservationists and the Zoo in Czech Republic that was once Najin and Fatu’s home. Given that Fatu cannot conceive naturally and Najin is old with health problems of her own, BioRescue has focused on a plan to find a surrogate southern white rhino mother to carry an embryo to term from harvested northern white rhino eggs and sperm.
Thus, in 2014 BioRescue harvested 14 eggs from Fatu using an ultrasound guided probe. These eggs were overnighted to Milan, and driven to the Avantea laboratory in Cremona, Italy. There, they were combined with the frozen sperm from Suni. Suni’s sperm was collected and frozen in the 1990s when he was young, and the quality of sperm is much higher than that collected from Sudan in his last years. As it stands, there is a frozen embryo count of five. The embryos are maintained in a tank of liquid nitrogen at -196C. If they are kept like this, they will continue to be viable for thousands of years. It’s up to us to ensure science catches up. Fatu and Suni’s embryos are the future of this species, and along with other frozen embryos created from other critically endangered species, could become part of a frozen Noah’s Ark we take with us into an uncertain future. This concept is not dissimilar to the doomsday vault in Svalbard, Norway, a seed bank of more that 930,000 varieties of food crops, frozen and waiting as a secure backup for world crop diversity.
BioRescue plan to have a calf in two to three years. They have chosen a surrogate mother southern white rhino female, Owuan. Hilderbrandt and team will plant Suni and Fatu’s embryos in Owuan when she is on heat, thus improving chances that the embryo will take. The hope is that this happens before Fatu’s passing, so that she can mother the calf and the social knowledge of a northern white rhino can be passed on.
How can I help save the Northern White Rhino from extinction?
Ol Pejeta runs campaigns and fundraising efforts to support the preservation of Najin and Fatu. You can ‘adopt’ either of the ladies, and you donate money towards the efforts of BioRescue to birth a new calf using a surrogate mum, Owuan. Fauna & Flora International are another non-profit organisation who are fundraising for Najin and Fatu, and you can get involved in their work. WWF are also instrumental in anti-poaching initiatives not just in Kenya, but across Africa.
You can also visit Najin and Fatu at Ol Pejeta to view them. As they were both raised in captivity they are calm and placid around humans. There is of course a fee to see them, and this goes directly towards maintaining the security needed to protect them, as well as caretaker wages, and BioRescue efforts.
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