Farewell Sana: World's Oldest Captive White Rhino Breaths Its Last At French Zoo
Sana was born in 1964 in the Umfolozi National Park in South Africa. She was transported to Europe seven years later as a zoo attraction. The life expectancy of white rhinos in the wild is about 50 years.
Southern white rhinoceros or square-lipped rhinoceros is the largest species among its kind, and South African-born Sana was one of the oldest members of it.
Unfortunately, Sana breathed her last at the age of 55, at the French zoo that she called home for the last 26 years.
Twitter/Picture For Representation
According to AFP, Sana was born in 1964 in the Umfolozi National Park in South Africa. She was transported to Europe seven years later, as a zoo attraction.
According to caretakers, Sana ¡°always had a strong character, she was the one who set the rules.¡± During her last stages, she stopped rolling in the mud, something that Rhinos do to their skin hydrated, and keep away infections.
¡°Once a week, they coated her in green clay to help her skin stay hydrated and to stave off infections,¡± the park caretakers said.
Picture For Representation
The life expectancy of white rhinos in the wild is about 50 years, according to the Save the Rhino advocacy group. The square-lipped grazers, larger than their black cousins, are divided into southern and northern subspecies.
In March 2018, the subspecies of northern white rhino became functionally extinct when the last remaining male, Sudan, died in Kenya, leaving two sole captive female survivors, neither able to carry a calf.
The 45-year-old northern white rhino male Sudan died at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. He was euthanized after a prolonged battle against "age-related complications that led to degenerative changes in muscles and bones combined with extensive skin wounds."
Now, scientists may have figured out a way to save the species of rhinoceros by using cutting-edge fertility treatment technology. In August this year, scientists harvested 10 eggs from the two remaining rhinos, Najin and Fatu - five oocytes from each. Now, the scientists have been successful in artificially inseminating seven of those 10 eggs at a lab in Italy, using Intra Cytoplasm Sperm Injection (ICSI).
Rhinos are one of the most majestic animals on Earth and we humans have single handedly pushed their population to the brink of extinction.
For Rhino caretakers across the world, not amount of awareness about the importance of conservation and the danger of extinctions is enough, given the rate at which the species is disappearing. The pain to see Sana die in front of their eyes is a pain that none of us can fathom.
