The last male northern white rhino had been born in Sudan, the last of his kind to be born in the wild. He was taken to a Czech zoo and then transferred to Kenya in 2009 with the three other remaining fertile northern white rhinos at the time. “Additionally, his genetic material was collected yesterday and provides a hope for future attempts at reproduction of northern white rhinos through advanced cellular technologies.”The only hope for preserving the subspecies “now lies in developing in vitro fertilization techniques using eggs from the two remaining females, stored northern white rhino semen from males and surrogate southern white rhino females,” the statement said. Other rhinos, the southern white rhino and another species, the black rhino, are under heavy pressure from poachers who kill them for their horns to supply illegal markets in parts of Asia. Roughly 20,000 southern white rhinos remain in Africa.

Source: thestar March 20, 2018 13:26 UTC