The National Museum of Kenya received, in Nairobi, the embalmed body of the last white rhino in the world, Sudan, which died in a nature reserve in the country in 2018.
The body of the Sudan rhino, which arrived in Kenya from the Czech Republic, will be “displayed in a central location accessible to all,” said the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS, its acronym in English), an institution responsible for managing of the wild areas of the country.
+ Rhino hunting registers slight decline in South Africa
Sudan was the last male northern white rhino in the world, a subspecies that is “virtually extinct” due to poaching and habitat loss.
This rhino was born in the Czech zoo in Dvur Králové and lived in the Ol Pejeta nature reserve (central Kenya) from 2009 until he died in March 2018 when his health deteriorated due to an infection in his right leg resulting from old age. (45 years).
In 2019, his body was transported to the Czech Republic for dissection, which was completed in 2021.
Before its death, experts managed to extract “genetic material” from the animal, which “gives hope for future attempts at reproduction of the white rhinoceros species, through advanced genetic techniques”, announced the Ol Pejeta reserve at the time.
Currently, there are only two northern white rhinos left alive: the females Najin and Fatu, daughter and granddaughter of Sudan, respectively, who also reside in Ol Pejeta.
In an attempt to preserve this subspecies, experts from Kenya, Germany and the Czech Republic managed to create at least 24 viable embryos from the eggs of these females and frozen sperm from Sudan and other northern white rhinos.
Poaching – driven by the high demand for rhino horn, particularly in China and some countries in Southeast Asia, is driving both black rhinos and southern white rhinos towards extinction, warn organizations such as Save The Rhino.
Black rhino numbers have dropped by 85% between 1973 and 2017 and there are only around 5,000 left in several countries in southern and eastern Africa.
#Embalmed #body #white #rhino #display