The last male northern white rhino has died.
Sudan, age 45, passed away at his home at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on Monday 19 March, 2018.
He was born in 1972 in Sudan. He is survived by a daughter, Najin, and a granddaughter, Fatu.
Sudan's death has added urgency to the efforts by the Ol Pejeta Conservancy , Czech Republic Dvůr Králové Zoo and other bodies to raise funds for an IVF initiative to fertilize eggs from the two remaining females with preserved semen from northern white males. This will be a new procedure – developed specifically for this - and it needs to be done before the two females die.
In 2009, four northern white rhinos arrived at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy from Dvůr Králové Zoo. The hope was that they would be more likely to breed in a setting similar to their natural habitat. These attempts have been unsuccessful. The rhinos were/are old. Tests also seem to indicate that neither of the females would be able to carry a pregnancy. The only option remaining is to use a female southern white as a surrogate if the northern white subspecies is to be saved.
Sudan was the last male standing after Suni, the younger of the two males brought to Kenya, died of natural causes in 2014 at 34 years of age. Shortly thereafter, the other remaining male died in San Diego.
I have no doubt that if the rhinos had not been in captivity, the subspecies would have disappeared a long time ago. Yet it is telling that they were brought back to a semblance of nature in order to give their kind a chance to survive. It is a semblance because the rhinos’ horns were cut off in order to protect them from poachers. In addition, the animals are under 24-hours armed security.
The northern white rhino is a subspecies that has been decimated by human avarice.
How many more types of animal and plant life are going to disappear forever because of our greed?
How long before we, too, disappear because our stomachs are too big for our eyes?
Sources:
https://www.thedodo.com/rhino-guarded-day-and-night--1084636275.html