Let this sink in: There are only two northern white rhinos left in the world. Fatu and Najin are both female, both unable to conceive. They live in the 90,000-acre Ol Pejeta Conservancy in the Laikipia region of central Kenya, seemingly on borrowed time for their species. Frankly, it’s a tragedy. But it’s a tragedy that has the chance to be rewritten. While the world mourned the passing of Sudan, the last remaining male northern white rhino—who died of natural causes in March—a team of experts from around the world was preparing to create the first-ever rhino embryo using the frozen sperm of a northern white and the ovum of a southern white rhino.
It was a plan these scientists had been hatching since 2014 after discovering that neither of the surviving females were able to conceive: Najin’s hind legs are too weak to carry a pregnancy to full term (a result of years on concrete in a zoo), and Fatu is infertile due to a uterine infection. Then, in early July, news broke that scientists at Italy’s Avantea institute, a laboratory for biotechnology research and animal reproduction in Cremona, had successfully created the first-ever rhino embryo in a laboratory from a southern white and northern white rhinos. Although similar in appearance, the two are different species: The northern white, which hails from parts of Uganda, Chad, Sudan, and the Central African Republic, has a straight back, hairy ears, and a shorter horn—whereas the larger southern white rhino is from southern Africa. This embryo is still a hybrid, but it’s a strong indicator that the research team might successfully be able to create a northern white rhino embryo.
“[Generating the embryo] was a crucial step on the path to saving northern white rhinos,” says Jan Stejskal, the director of international projects at ZOO Dvur Kralove, one of the partners collaborating with the Ol Pejeta Conservancy to save the species. If all goes according to plan and the embryo is achieved, it will be inserted into a southern white rhino, who will incubate the baby. There’s reason to be optimistic, too: “We have a good amount of suitable semen from the northern white rhino, which we have stored from a collection that goes back more than ten years,” Stejkal says. “The female rhinos are also still at an age where the quality of the eggs will be good.” Once extracted, the eggs have to be flown from Kenya to Italy and fertilised in a laboratory. If—and it’s a big if—the embryo creation succeeds, the embryo will be flown back to Kenya and inserted into one of the southern white rhinos.
To visit Fatu and Najin at Ol Pejeta, a private conservancy in central Kenya, you have to cross three guarded gates before entering a large grassy security enclosure. When I first met them, the sturdy, archaic-looking animals came hurtling toward the vehicle before slowing down and gently knocking their horns against the window. It was strange to see these creatures—typically not the friendliest in the animal kingdom—being affectionate with the car. But they know that its sound means food, and that Zachary Mutai, the head northern white rhino keeper, had arrived to feed them. Mutai, a slim, delicate man who looks like he could easily be trampled by his charges, hopped out the car and littered the grass with pellets and carrots, which the rhinos ate furiously, oblivious to the fact that they’re the last two of their kind on earth. Mutai has been working with the rhinos for seven years, almost as long as the animals have been in the conservancy. It was in 2009 that Fatu and Najin (along with the deceased Sudan and Suni) were transported from a Czech zoo to Kenya in the hope that the animals would reproduce and ultimately save the species. The Ol Pejeta Conservancy was chosen for this project because it’s the largest black rhino sanctuary in East Africa, home to 14 percent of all Kenya’s rhinos. It’s probably the safest place for the rhinos to roam: Security is extremely tight (they have 158 rangers and a dog unit) and, unlike most private conservancies and national parks across the African continent, they publicly state how many rhinos they have. That way, if one rhino is poached, the whole world will know. “Because the numbers [across the continent] are declining, it’s good to show them. It creates awareness,” Mutai says.
Formerly a cattle ranch, Ol Pejeta was acquired in 2004 by the U.K.-based conservation organisation Fauna & Flora International (with the financial backing of the Arcus Foundation, a private organisation founded by American philanthropist Jon Stryker). It gained media attention because it was the home of Sudan, the last male northern white, but it also houses a number of other pioneering conservation and community projects, including the repopulation of black rhinos, another critically endangered species indigenous to the area. The conservancy has more than 120 black rhinos roaming its plains, which visitors come from as far away as Australia and China to see. The population is growing so considerably, in fact, that some of the rhinos have been relocated to Mutara, a high security ranch next door. On one morning game drive, I saw thirty rhinos. Thirty! A safari-goer visiting any other national park or conservancy will be lucky to see one rhino during a week-long trip. The last time I saw so many rhinos, I was a young child.
The devastating story of poaching in Africa has become all-too resonant. As the demand for rhino horn in Asia grows, so the rhino population continues to dwindle; today, fewer than 25,000 remain, according to African Parks. Although Kenya saw a slight drop in rhino poaching in 2017, compared with 2016—from 14 to 9—according Najib Balala, Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife for Kenya, rhinos are still far from safe. “This was a result of human destruction,” Mutai says, recalling the painful day he bid farewell to Sudan. “I cried for three days.”
The rhinos are a highlight of a visit to Ol Pejeta, which also runs traditional safaris, with guests sleeping in lodgings that range from cottages to tented camps. On my visit, I stayed at the Ol Pejeta Bushcamp, one of the lodges within the conservancy, and spent my days on game drives looking for rhinos, cheetah and lions. Guests can take part in a number of conservation activities, like visiting the anti-poaching dog unit, stopping by the chimpanzee sanctuary, and scheduling a visit to see Fatu and Najin, where they can get close to the rhinos and watch them feed (the visits happen twice daily, with a maximum of six people). Seeing the two northern whites is a poignant experience, which left me happy and heartbroken at the same time. This rhinos’ desperate plight is heightened by a visit to Ol Pejeta’s rhino cemetery, on a wide grassy plain, where 18 tombstones mark the graves of rhinos. Under the lone Morani tree (named after the first rhino buried in the cemetery), a tombstone reads: Sudan, The Last Male Northern White Rhino, 1973 – 2018.
Growing the rhino population will not be an easy task. “We want people to understand there’s a challenge,” says Annik Mitchell, head of tourism at Ol Pejeta Conservancy. The conservancy relies heavily on tourism to provide income for its many conservation projects. “Seeing this many rhinos in the wild isn’t normal—it’s hard work,” she adds. Creating a northern white rhino embryo will be equally challenging. The team hopes to achieve one before the end of this year, but it’s hard to predict. “Before we put the embryo into the southern white rhino, we still have to develop the method for inserting it, so that’s another challenge ahead of us,” Stejskal says. “It’s a demanding procedure for the scientist, and it could also be demanding for the animal because they have to be fully sedated.”
For now, the scientists can only do their part in the laboratory. Then, in this highly unnatural predicament, it’s up to nature to take its course.
First published on Condé Nast Traveler USA