Sudan passed away in March 2018 and his death meant the end of a species. Sudan was a Northern white rhino ¡ª hundreds and thousands of which once roamed across Africa. Extensively hunted and poached, their numbers fell to around 19,000 in the early 1980s. And Sudan was the last male of the species.
Sudan was survived by his daughter Najin and granddaughter Fatu. Wildlife conservationists had been trying to resurrect the species by extracting eggs from Najin and Fatu, artificially developing the embryos, and reproducing through a surrogate. But unfortunately, neither Najin nor Fatu could carry a calf to term.
Last week, the scientists decided to retire 32-year-old Najin as a donor of egg cells, citing ethical considerations.
Najin was born in Safari Park Dv?r Kr¨¢lov¨¦ (Czech Republic) in 1989 to Sudan and his mate, Nasima. She was moved to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya in 2009 for a natural breeding programme. She was taken along with her three other northern white rhinos, including Sudan and Najin¡¯s daughter ¡ª Fatu, who was born in 2000. Scientists wanted to take them to their natural habitat in order to encourage them to breed. However, that did not happen.?
By 2014, scientists realised that the only way to save the species was through advanced techniques of assisted reproduction.?The in-vitro fertilization programme was conducted by the BioRescue consortium, led by researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany by fertilising the egg cells (oocytes) with the?frozen sperm?of a deceased male. The extraction of oocytes is rather taxing on the females, involving hormone stimulation, full anaesthesia and trans-rectal oocyte retrieval.?
This process led to collecting only a few eggs from Najin and none of them could be fertilised to become an embryo. Instead, in the process, they found benign tumours in her cervix, uterus and ovary.?
Despite health concerns, Najin will remain part of the programme by providing tissue samples for stem cell approaches, which can be performed with minimal invasion.?
According to a Reuters report, Fatu has given the scientists hope of reviving the species.?David Ndeereh, the acting deputy director for research at the Wildlife Research and Training Institute, a Kenyan state agency, said, "We have been very successful with Fatu... So far we have 12 pure Northern white rhino embryos. We are very optimistic that the project will succeed."
Thousands of Northern white rhinos used to walk this planet. They survived ice ages, volcanoes, wildfires, meteor strikes but the one thing that took them down was human greed.?