Kenya says efforts to save northern white rhinos from extinction at advanced stage

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The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said on Friday that its efforts to rescue northern white rhinos (NWR), a critically endangered species, from extinction through artificial fertilization are at a crucial stage.

The KWS said it is collaborating with international partners in the BioRescue consortium to utilize advanced assisted reproduction technologies (ART), such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo transfer.

Following the death of the last male of the species in 2018, the BioRescue consortium is now exploring ART using the only two remaining female NWRs, Najin and her daughter Fatu, both hosted at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Central Kenya's Laikipia County, the KWS said in a statement issued in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

"After years of meticulous research and perfecting our methods, we are now at the critical stage of getting a pregnancy using northern white rhino embryos," KWS Director-General Erustus Kanga said.

According to the statement, the ART process involves harvesting eggs from Najin and Fatu, airlifting the eggs to the Avantea laboratory in Cremona, Italy, within a critical 24-hour window for maturation into ovum, and fertilization of the ovum using cryopreserved sperm from deceased NWR males to form embryos that will later be transferred to surrogate SWRs to establish a pregnancy.

Kanga said they have already achieved a proof of concept by successfully creating a pregnancy in a surrogate using a Southern White Rhino embryo.

The BioRescue project, which is the last hope for the functionally extinct subspecies, has so far successfully created some pure NWR embryos that are safely cryopreserved awaiting future transfer, the KWS said.

The KWS said the journey to save the NRWs began in earnest in 2019, building on decades of conservation efforts, including the 2009 transfer of the last four fertile NWRs from Zoo Dvur Kralove in the Czech Republic to Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

"With the passing of the last two males, Sudan and Suni, hope now rests entirely on science and the two remaining females, Najin and her daughter Fatu," the agency added.