Sharjah24 – Reuters: Scientists have produced two more northern white rhino embryos, bringing their total to five, as they try to pull the species back from the brink of extinction.
Scientists racing to pull the northern white rhino back from the brink of extinction have produced two more embryos from egg cells harvested in Kenya, increasing the total number of viable embryos produced so far to five.
It's meant a happy end to what was a difficult 2020, when international travel restrictions forced scientists to delay some key procedures and could have jeopardized the pioneering conservation project.
The northern white rhino is critically endangered. The last male died in Kenya's Ol Pejeta conservancy in 2018 and the last two surviving animals are mother and daughter Najin and Fatu who are both infertile.
In December BioRescue harvested egg cells which were fertilized with frozen sperm from dead males.
The embryos will be transferred into a surrogate mother, for which BioRescue plans to use the southern white rhino, a subspecies numbering about 18,000.
The team hopes to deliver their first northern white rhino calf in three years and a wider population in the next two decades.
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