Scientists create embryos to save northern white rhino

Scientists create embryos to save northern white rhino

Scientists working to bring back the functionally extinct northern white rhino announced they had successfully created three additional embryos of the subspecies, bringing the total to 12. One of world’s two remaining live specimens-female Fatu who lives with her mother Najin on Kenya’s 90,000-acre Ol Pejeta wildlife conservancy-provided the eggs for the project, while the sperm used was from two different deceased males. Scientific consortium Biorescue described in a press release late Thursday how the eggs were collected from Fatu in early July before being airlifted to a lab in Italy for fertilization, development and preservation.

Neither Fatu nor Najin is capable of carrying a calf to term, so surrogate mothers for the embryos will be selected from a population of southern white rhinos. Ol Pejeta director Richard Vigne told AFP on Friday that he believed in the project’s chances of success, while emphasizing the high stakes. “No one is going to pretend that this is going to be easy,” he said. “We are doing things which are cutting-edge from a scientific perspective and we a dealing with genetics, with the two last northen white rhinos left on the planet,” said Vigne.

“There are many, many things that could go wrong,” he