Lab-Produced Embryos Could Save White Rhinos From Extinction

White rhinos are on the brink of extinction, especially when the last male white rhino died almost three years ago. Unfortunately, neither of the two last white rhinos, a mother and daughter called Najin and Fatu, can carry a calf in full term.

However, scientists started producing embryos in 2019 from the eggs of two females and the frozen sperm from a deceased male white rhino.

Scientists announced this year that they have successfully produced two more embryos, making the total number to five embryos. The team plans to implant the embryos into a surrogate mother this March in hopes of bringing back the white rhinos from the brink of extinction.

Saving White Rhinos From Extinction

The plans of the BioRescue team were hampered last year by the coronavirus pandemic when countries have implemented travel ban restrictions, which delayed some key procedures of the project, the New York Post reported.

"2020 was really a hard test for all of us, but giving up is not the mentality of any true scientist," BioRescue leader Thomas Hildebrandt from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany said. But last Christmas, they received a timely present when they produced two embryos.

The news outlet reported that the five embryos are now kept inside the liquid nitrogen in a laboratory in Cremona, in the Lombardy region of Italy before they could transfer it into a surrogate mother.

Moreover, the team hopes to deliver the first northern white rhino calf in three year and hopefully produce a wider population in the next two decades.

Hildebrandt said that they are under time constraint to save the white rhino population.

"We are under time constraint because we want really a transfer of the social knowledge from the last existing northern white rhinos to a calf," he said.

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Why Are White Rhinos in the Brink of Extinction?

MailOnline reported that Northern white rhinos used to be abundant in several coutries across the east and central Africa. They were mostly found in the southern Chadm the Central African Republic, southwestern Sudan, northern Democratic Republic of Congo, and northwester Uganda.

But as early as in the 1960s, only 2,000 white rhinos were left due to poaching. Only two known individuals are left today, leaving the white rhinos in the brink of extinction.

According to WWF, the uncontrolled hunting during the colonial era was a major factor why the white rhinos are in decline. In modern ties, poaching for the illegal trade of white rhino horns is a major threat to the animal's population.

However, poaching has led to their extinction in the wild, with just two known individuals left.