The team on Tuesday successfully obtained two eggs from 29-year-old Najin and eight eggs from her daughter, 20-year-old Fatu, at Ol Pejeta conservancy in Laikipia County.
The programme comes two years after the death of the world’s last male Northern White Rhino — Sudan. The bull died in March 2018 at the Ol-Pejeta Conservancy aged 45.
The oocytes were extracted from the animals’ ovaries using a probe with a movable needle guided by ultrasound.
According to the team of vets, anaesthesia and the extraction went on smoothly, after which the eggs were immediately airlifted to Avantea Laboratory in Italy.
White rhino bulls
The oocytes will in the next few days be incubated, matured and fertilised with sperm from already deceased Northern white rhino bulls. This will — hopefully — lead to viable northern white rhino embryos, which will be stored in liquid nitrogen alongside three embryos generated in previous procedures.
In August last year, the team conducted the first ovum extraction and another one was conducted in January this year.
The procedure carried out on Tuesday, which was the third, has raised optimism of success.
“The progress made so far in the assisted reproduction project is very encouraging and we look forward to the transfer of the already developed embryos into Southern White Rhino surrogate females here at Ol Pejeta Conservancy,” Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala said after witnessing the historic event.
The procedure, though successful, was several months behind the original schedule due to travel restrictions brought about by Covid-19, which saw activities at European zoos and Ol Pejeta Conservancy halted.
Ol Pejeta conservancy
The team of scientists was led by Prof Thomas Hilderbrandt of Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in Berlin and Dr David Ndereeh from the Kenya Wildlife Service. Other experts were from Avantea, Dvůr Králové Zoo and Ol Pejeta conservancy.
Prof Hilderbrandt said: “We always regarded BioRescue as not only focused on creating new offspring of one single species, but rather as a first milestone in repairing severely disturbed habitats in Central Africa.”
Kenya Wildlife Service Director General Brig (Rtd) John Waweru said the partnership brought them closer to averting the extinction of one of the world’s rarest species.
Sudan, the last bull in the endangered sub-species, died from age-related complications. Christened the ‘most eligible bachelor’, Sudan joined dating app Tinder in an effort to raise funds to save his subspecies.
Mr Balala said in the past eight months, 35 rhinos were born in various conservancies in the country. He further announced that Kenya lost four rhinos last year to poachers.
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