Race to Save the Northern White Rhino

The northern white rhino faces imminent extinction due to poaching, with only two females remaining—a mother and daughter, living under tight security at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a wildlife sanctuary in Kenya.

To save the species, German scientists are conducting rhino in vitro fertilization (IVF). The scientists successfully transferred a lab-produced southern white rhino embryo to a surrogate mother after years of developing techniques to collect eggs and implant embryos more than six feet inside the two-ton animal. Achieving the first viable pregnancy required 13 attempts.

The next step is to repeat the IVF process in a northern white rhino, a close relative to the southern counterpart. Scientists will use sperm cells collected from the last male northern white rhino before his death.