Could this be the end of Northern White Rhinos on earth as the last male died on Monday? The old Rhino named Sudan died on Monday at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya at the age of 45. The Conservancy has and takes care of the last generations of Northern White Rhinos on earth. The death of the giant creature was not unexpected as it was recorded that it had been passing through some health challenges due to infections.

The population of the Northern White Rhino as at 1960 was about 2000 and prior to Sudan’s death, there were only 3 left, now 2. The 2 Rhinos left are Sudan’s daughter, Najin, 28 and granddaughter, Fatu, 17.

While speaking in an interview, the manager of the Conservancy, Elodie Sampere said:

“He was suffering from old-age conditions, such as arthritis and lack of mobility in his legs,”  “He was losing mobility in his legs, and we were treating him for all these things, and then it just got the best of him, and then on Sunday, he was unable to get up any more, and you know once a rhino is unable to get up, that means he is unable to feed. So the decision was made to euthanize him, but in the end it was because his legs gave up on him.”

IT’S NOT THE END OF THE NORTHERN RHINOS!

Death does not mean the end of life. Efforts have been made since the death of Sudan to save the species from going extinct. Sampere says there is hope of preserving the species.

“They retrieved some of the genetic material yesterday after he was dead. There was also some semen stored from Sudan, so we have some stored semen,” Sampere said. “The death of Sudan does not mean the death of the species. We still have two females that are there, and there are plans to do OPU later this year, which basically means that we are going to retrieve the egg from the females in the hope of creating embryos, so his death does not mean the end of the species.”

OUR HOPE

The death of Sudan should be a wake-up call for us. Killing wildlife that adds value to the ecosystem for our selfish interest is so barbaric. We hope the artificial method of reproducing these Northern Rhinos is successful. If not, we should be expecting the total extinction of this specie of Rhinos in less than 2 decades.

Do you think the artificial reproduction will be successful? We are so optimistic about the reproduction because we can’t bear the pains of seeing large mammals go to extinction.