Scientists create 12 embryos to save the northern white rhino
Twelve embryos of the northern white rhinoceros were formed, after two years of research aimed at saving this sub-species that has practically become extinct, according to what the organizers of this project announced.
Since the death of the last male of this species in 2018, there are only two female survivors and her young daughter, Fatu, who live in the Kenyan Ol Pejeta Reserve.
But the germ cells of several males have been preserved.
As of August 2019, members of "Biorisko", a coalition that brings together scientists and conservation experts, collected 80 oocytes, from which they formed a total of 12 embryos, according to a statement issued by the authority.
Richard Fine, director of the Ol Pejeta Reserve, pointed out that many challenges remain for this project despite its promising results.
"No one is claiming that the task is easy, but it has a high chance of success in my opinion," he said.
"We are launching pioneering scientific initiatives and relying on genetics to save the last northern white rhino on Earth," he added.
Neither of the two females are capable of conceiving, so scientists used females of the southern white rhino species, which originated from southern Africa, to form young northern white rhinos, a species that was especially widespread in southern Sudan and Uganda.
"It is very encouraging to see the progress this program has made in its ambitious endeavors to save this species," Kenya's Tourism Minister Najib Bilala said in a statement.
Rhinos do not face risks from predators, due to their size and the density of their skin.
However, its centuries' purported advantages in traditional Asian medicine fueled poaching in the 1970s and 1980s, and conflicts intensified.
Modern rhinos have lived on our planet for 26 million years and were estimated to have numbered more than one million in Africa in the mid-19th century.
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