The last male northern white rhino has died in Kenya at the age of 45, his keepers announced yesterday, leaving only two females of his subspecies alive.
The rhino, named Sudan, “was being treated for age-related complications that led to degenerative changes in muscles and bones combined with extensive skin wounds,” said a statement from the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where he lived under armed guard to prevent poaching. “His condition worsened significantly in the last 24 hours; he was unable to stand up and was suffering a great deal. The veterinary team ... made the decision to euthanize him.”
Theoretically, the death of Sudan assures the extinction of this subspecies of rhino.
However, scientists have gathered his genetic material and are working on developing in vitro fertilization techniques to preserve the subspecies.
The northern white rhino population in Uganda, Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic was largely wiped out during the poaching crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, fueled by demand for rhino horn in traditional Chinese medicine in Asia and dagger handles in Yemen.
A final remaining wild population of about 20 to 30 rhinos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was killed in fighting in the late nineties and early 2000s, and by 2008 the northern white rhino was considered extinct in the wild.
Four fertile rhinos, two males and two females, were moved from the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic to Ol Pejeta in Kenya, in the hopes that conditions similar to their native habitat would encourage breeding.
However, despite the fact that they were seen mating, there were no successful pregnancies.
Further efforts to mate a male southern white rhino with the females — and thus conserve some of the northern white genes — were also unsuccessful.
The other male rhino, Suni, died of natural causes in October 2014.
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