Northern White Rhinos Could Be Saved from Extinction Thanks to Species’ First IVF Pregnancy

Project BioRescue said the achievement was “a cornerstone in the mission to save the northern white rhino from extinction.”

The first IVF pregnancy of a northern white rhino has given the nearly extinct species a better chance of survival.

The BioRescue project announced on Wednesday that it had achieved the world’s first successful embryo transfer in a rhinoceros. The international research team shared that the procedure produced a “70-day pregnancy with a well-developed male embryo 6.4 cm long.”

To achieve the milestone, the BioRescue project produced a southern white rhinoceros embryo from collected eggs and sperm. The embryo was transferred to a surrogate mother of a southern white rhino at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on September 24, 2023.

The research consortium said the achievement was “a cornerstone in the mission to save the northern white rhino from extinction”.

Atlanta Zoo Welcomes First White Rhino Cub on Christmas Eve: ‘More Excited’

two northern white rhinos and one southern white rhino are found in the area of ​​the Ol Pejeta reserve.

Naveena Kottoor/Image Alliance/Getty

“Successful embryo transfer and pregnancy are proof of concept and allow [us] to now move safely to northern white rhino embryo transfer,” the nonprofit said in its announcement.

According to Helping Rhinos, a non-profit organization, there are only two rhinos left in the world — Najin and Fatu. Both are female and cannot reproduce naturally.

Sudan, the last known male northern white rhino, died in March 2018. Najin, Fatu, Sudan and Suni, who died in 2014, arrived in Ol Pejeta in December 2009 after living at Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic.

Rhino born on Christmas Eve finds love at California zoo with help from matchmaker (Exclusive)

Northern white rhinos.

Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“All previous attempts at breeding at the zoo were in vain, and the hope was that the climate and rich grasslands of Ol Pejeta, the animals’ natural habitat, would provide them with more favorable breeding conditions,” the website said in a statement.

The International Rhino Foundation states that the best option for preventing the extinction of the northern white rhino is to preserve the subspecies’ genetic material and use it in advanced reproductive technologies.

“Even so, these methods will never fully recreate the subspecies—the best we can hope for is that the critical genes that allowed the northern white rhino to adapt to ecosystems in its historical range can be preserved. And that, at some point Namely , existing northern white rhino genetic material can be crossed with southern white rhinos to produce hybrid offspring,” the organization adds on its website.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education