An embryo is created by in vitro fertilization for a northern broad-lipped white rhino, of which there are only 2 in the world/Photo: Reuters
Has hope been found for saving animals that are on the verge of extinction?
Maybe so.
A huge breakthrough in the field of fertility that happened recently offers hope for saving the northern white rhino from extinction - of which there are only two individuals left (!) on earth.
Scientists have achieved the world's first white rhino pregnancy through in vitro fertilization (IVF), successfully transferring a lab-created rhino embryo to a surrogate mother.
The procedure was performed on southern white rhinos, a close subspecies of the northern ones, and both belong to the subspecies of the white rhinoceros.
The next step in the procedure, is to repeat the fertilization with embryos of a northern broad-lipped white rhinoceros.
"Succeeding in the first embryo transfer in a rhinoceros of this type is a huge step," said yesterday (Wednesday) Susanna Holtze, a scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany, which is part of the "Biorescue" project - an international partnership trying to save this species.
"I think with this achievement, we are very confident that we can create northern white rhinos in the same way, and that we can save the species."
A female northern white rhinoceros, one of the last two left in the world/ShutterStock
The species is unable to reproduce and is technically extinct
Northern wide-lipped white rhinos were once found throughout central Africa, but illegal poaching, fueled by the demand for rhino horn, decimated the wild population.
Now there are only two rhinos left: two females, Najin and her daughter Fatu.
The mother and daughter, who used to stay in a zoo, are now kept under tight security at Ol Pejeta Game Reserve in Kenya.
The species is unable to reproduce and is technically extinct.
But now the Bioresque team has intervened quite radically in the science of fertility in order to continue the sex life.
They began their work with southern broad-lipped white rhinos.
This close cousin of northern wide-lipped white rhinos numbers in the thousands - and is considered a conservation success story even though it's still threatened by illegal poaching.
The project lasted for years and had to overcome many challenges: from thinking about how to collect the eggs from an animal weighing two tons, to creating the first ever rhinoceros embryos in the laboratory and ending with trying to determine how and when to implant them.
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The last two females of the species, Najin and her daughter Pato.
Maybe now there will be hope/ShutterStock
Success was followed by tragedy
It took 13 attempts to achieve the first artificial insemination pregnancy using southern wide-lipped white rhinos.
"It's very challenging in such a large animal, in terms of getting an embryo inside the reproductive system, which is almost two meters inside the animal," Susanna Holtze told the BBC.
The embryo, created using an egg from a female southern broad-lipped rhinoceros from a zoo in Belgium and fertilized with a male sperm in Austria, was transferred to a surrogate southern broad-lipped white rhinoceros in Kenya, who became pregnant.
However, following success came tragedy.
3D model of a 70-day-old fetus created by in vitro fertilization of a northern rhinoceros/Reuters
Death stunned the team of scientists
70 days into the pregnancy, the surrogate mother died after being infected with clostridia - a bacteria found in the soil that can be fatal to animals.
The death stunned the team of scientists - a post-mortem revealed that the 6.5cm male embryo was well developed and had a 95% chance of being born alive.
However, the technique worked and showed that a rhino IVF pregnancy was possible. Now, the next step is to try it with embryos Northern white rhinoceros.
Only 30 of these precious embryos exist, stored in liquid nitrogen in Germany and Italy. They were created using eggs taken from Pato, the young female in Kenya, and sperm collected from two male northern white rhinos before they died, one of whom was named "Sudan" And he died in 2018 at the age of 45 due to medical complications.
The grave of "Sudan" the last male northern white rhinoceros.
Before his death, sperm was extracted from him/ShutterStock
There is still a long way to go
However, the birth of a northern wide-lipped white rhino calf will first require further scientific testing.
Neither of the last two surviving female northern broad-lipped white rhinos can be pregnant, due to a combination of age and health problems.
So instead the embryo will be implanted in the womb of a surrogate female southern rhinoceros.
IVF in the subspecies has never been tried before, but the team of scientists is confident it will work.
Prof. Thomas Hildebrandt, director of the Liebniz IZW research institute and head of the Biorescue project, said: "I think the situation with the northern broad-lipped white rhinoceros is quite good in terms of embryo transfer, because we have a close relative who succeeded in fertilization - so their internal system is almost same".
The team of scientists hopes to implant the embryos in the coming months.
They want the cub to be born while there are still a few northern white rhinos (or rather rhinoceroses) alive.
"We want to preserve the social communication, the social heritage of the northern wide-lipped white rhinoceros by releasing the first cub into the field, so that it learns the language from the last two rhinos and learns how to behave from them," explained Prof. Hildebrandt.
The researchers are aware that adding a few more animals through IVF will not save this species - there will not be enough genetic diversity to create a viable population.
So they are simultaneously working on an even more experimental technique - trying to create rhinoceros sperm and eggs from stem cells, to continue producing embryos.
"We want the cub to be born while there are still some rhinos alive."
Thomas Hildebrandt at a press conference yesterday in Berlin/Reuters
"Behind extinction is man, we have a responsibility to save them"
As written, it will take time and there will be many scientific challenges to overcome.
Some wildlife experts also argue that the money and resources "poured" into a species that is lost could be better spent saving other viable species.
However, Jan Stiskal, coordinator of the Biorescue project from the Dvur Kralove Safari Park in the Czech Republic, where Njin and Pato originally came from, said: "One thing we have to understand is that behind the extinction of the northern white rhinoceros is man. It's not because of any evolutionary pressure , it happened because of greed and consumption of rhino horn. So, in a way, we are responsible and if we really have a technique that can help us save them, then I think we have a responsibility to use it and try to save them."
Samuel Mutsia, head of research and species conservation at Ol Pejeta, added that the northern white rhinos were a critical part of the ecosystem and the team "is committed to doing everything humanly possible to nurture, protect and restore the species".
More on the same topic:
Rhinos
in vitro fertilization
Animals