The last of the northern white rhinos are going extinct. The caretakers in Kenya of three northern white rhinos have started publicly saying that their two female and one mail rhinos will definitely not reproduce in natural ways. The three northern white rhinos represent half of world’s surviving rhinos from the species.
The northern white rhinos are going extinct, however, their salvation may be found in science. Efforts of keeping the species alive will now be made with the use of in vitro fertilization and probably working with the genetic material from the rhinos in a recent field referred to as de-extinction.
Four extremely endangered rhinos were flown from a zoo in the Czech Republic to East Africa. The rhinos were then driven on Mount Kenya in its savannah grasses and were hoped to produce a calf with the help of the natural environment.
The experiment has failed and chief executive of the Ol Pejeta Conservatory in which the rhinos have survived since 2009, Richard Vigne said that they always were aware that the chances of their plan to work were very small even if the rhinos bred.
Wednesday the conservancy said that the techniques of artificial reproduction could give the final chance of survival for the most endangered mammal in the world.
Numerous animal specialists said the effort came too late and it was too small and the budget of the experiment would have been spent better on other projects of conservation. But the majority of the $100.000 budget came from a single donor. The former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs, Australia, Alastair Lucas was the donor and he wanted to see the project come to a completion. Richard Vigne said that the project was not pointless because the rhinos were returned from a zoo back in Africa in their natural environment and that has been good for the rhinos.
The northern white rhino is a species that is likely to become extinct in the next coming years, regardless of new reproductive technology, said Vigne. He also added that he believes the entire human race is responsible for what has happened and would be horrible to just observe and not do anything about it.
