Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), in partnership with the international BioRescue consortium, has launched an ambitious scientific initiative to save the northern white rhino—a species now functionally extinct—with only two known females left on Earth.
The two remaining rhinos, Najin and her daughter Fatu, currently reside under tight protection at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Laikipia County.
Following the death of the last male rhino, Sudan, in 2018, conservationists have turned to Assisted Reproduction Techniques (ART) in a final bid to rescue the species.
The ART process involves an intricate and highly coordinated effort across continents. Egg cells are harvested from Najin and Fatu in Kenya and must be flown within 24 hours to the Avantea laboratory in Cremona, Italy.
At the lab, the eggs are matured and fertilized using frozen sperm from deceased male northern white rhinos.
Viable embryos are then preserved through cryopreservation, awaiting implantation into surrogate mothers—southern white rhinos—who will carry the pregnancies to term.
Kanga confirmed that the proof of concept has already been successful, and the consortium is now preparing to use pure NWR embryos in actual transfers.
“This project is a testament to what global collaboration can achieve,” Kanga said. “For KWS, seeing this succeed would be a historic milestone and a reaffirmation of our commitment to innovation in conservation.”
The BioRescue consortium, which began in 2019, is composed of leading institutions from Kenya, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Czech Republic.
The initiative builds upon decades of conservation work, including an earlier attempt to encourage natural breeding when the last four viable northern white rhinos were moved from Zoo Dvůr Králové in the Czech Republic to Ol Pejeta in 2009.
Though natural breeding failed, the breakthrough in ART offers new hope.
