rhino Archives - African Conservation Foundation

Successful Egg Harvest from the last 2 northern white rhinos may save the species

admin — Sun, 25 Aug 2019 08:16:07 +0000

There are only two northern white rhinos left worldwide, both of them female. Saving this representative of megafauna from extinction seems impossible under these circumstances, yet an international consortium of scientists and conservationists just completed a procedure that could enable assisted reproduction techniques to do just that.

On August 22, 2019, a team of veterinarians successfully harvested eggs from the two females who live in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya — a procedure that has never been attempted in northern white rhinos before. The eggs will now be artificially inseminated with frozen sperm from a northern white rhino bull, and in the near future the embryo will be transferred to a southern white rhino surrogate mother. The successful procedure was a joint effort by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) Berlin, Avantea, Dvůr Králové Zoo, Ol Pejeta Conservancy and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

With neither Najin and Fatu, the two northern white rhino females, able to carry a pregnancy, the future of the northern white rhino now rests solely on pioneering artificial reproduction techniques. The successful harvesting of their eggs means that scientists are one step closer to being able to save the northern white rhino from complete extinction.

The procedure was the result of years of research, development, adjustments and practice. “Both the technique and the equipment had to be developed entirely from scratch”, says Prof. Thomas Hildebrandt from Leibniz-IZW. “We were able to harvest a total of 10 oocytes – five from Najin and five from Fatu – showing that both females can still provide eggs and thus help to save these magnificent creatures.”

The procedure was conducted with a probe, guided by ultrasound, which harvested immature egg cells (oocytes) from the ovaries of the animals when placed under general anaesthetic. “The anaesthesia went smoothly without any complications although these animals had not been immobilized for the last five years,” says Frank Goeritz from Leibniz-IZW.

Fatu is undergoing the ovum pick-up procedure performed by Prof.Dr. Robert Hermes from Leibniz-IZW (left), Prof. Dr. Thomas Hildebrandt from Leibniz-IZW(middle) andDr. Susanne Holtze from Leibniz-IZW (right). Aspiration of eggs from the ovaries is a very delicate procedure due to the nearby presence of large blood vessels. Photo by Ami Vitale.

“The number of harvested oocytes is a wonderful success and proof that the unique cooperation between scientists, experts in zoos and conservationists in field can lead to hopeful prospects even for the animals that are imminently facing extinction”, adds Jan Stejskal from Dvůr Králové Zoo, where the two rhinos were born.

It was the partnership between Dvůr Králové Zoo, Ol Pejeta Conservancy and KWS that led to the translocation of Najin, Fatu and two male northern white rhinos from the Czech Republic to Kenya in December 2009, when it was hoped that breeding would be stimulated by the rhinos being closer to their natural environment. Although mating attempts were witnessed, there were no pregnancies. “We came to the conclusion after a health assessment in 2014 that, owing to various health issues, neither Najin or Fatu are able to carry a pregnancy”, explains Dr. Robert Hermes from the Leibniz-IZW. Two males – Suni and Sudan – died of natural causes in 2014 and 2018 respectively. Their sperm was cryo-preserved in the hope that assisted reproduction techniques would advance enough so that they could pass on their genome to a new generation.

“On the one hand Ol Pejeta is saddened that we are now down to the last two northern white rhinos on the planet, a testament to the profligate way the human race continues to interact with the natural world around us. However we are also immensely proud to be part of the ground breaking work which is now being deployed to rescue this species. We hope it signals the start of an era where humans finally start to understand that proper stewardship of the environment is not a luxury but a necessity,” said Richard Vigne, Managing Director of Ol Pejeta.

Northern white rhino keeper, James Mwenda, checks on Najin, one of the last two northern white rhino on the planet. Najin lives at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Photo by Ami Vitale.

“The concerted efforts to save the last northern white rhinos should guide the resolutions the world makes at the ongoing CITES meeting in Geneva. The assisted reproductive technique should galvanize the world’s attention to the plight of all rhinos and make us avoid decisions that undermine law enforcement and fuel demand for the rhino horn,” says Hon. Najib Balala, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife.

“”We are delighted that this partnership gets us one step closer to prevent extinction of the northern white rhinos. This is particularly touching given the heartbreaking death of Sudan, the last male, who died of old age last year in Kenya,” says Brig. (Rtd) John Waweru, the Kenya Wildlife Service Director General.

“Yesterday’s operation means that producing a northern white rhino embryo in vitro – which has never been done before – is a tangible reality for the first time,” says Cesare Galli from Avantea, the Italian laboratory of advanced technologies for biotechnology research and animal reproduction. Avantea will now fertilise the eggs in vitro using the cryo-preserved semen of Suni and Saút.

The procedure is part of an international research project named “BioRescue”, a consortium to which Leibniz-IZW, Avantea, and Dvůr Králové Zoo are a part, and which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). As well as harnessing the collective knowledge and expertise of the consortium to conduct the in vitro procedure, the project will also lead the development of techniques and procedures to create artificial gametes from stem cells. This will involve transforming stored tissue from northern white rhinos into induced pluripotent stem cells, and then into primordial germ cells. Germ cells can then be matured to develop into eggs or sperm cells – essentially widening the genetic basis and the quantity of the gametes. The stem cell approach is primarily carried out by BioRescue consortium members Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (Germany), Kyushu University (Japan) and Northwestern University (USA).

The whole procedure was conducted within an ethical framework that has been developed beforehand by ethicists and the other scientists and veterinarians involved in the procedure. “We developed a dedicated ethical risk analysis in order to prepare the team for all possible scenarios of such an ambitious procedure and to make sure that the welfare of the two individuals was totally respected”, says Barbara de Mori, the conservation and animal welfare ethics expert from Padua University. In addition, the procedure was conducted in compliance with Kenyan laws, policies and the relevant international requirements.

Source: Ol Pejeta Conservancy

Featured image by photographer Ami Vitale
“Fatu is surrounded by her keepers and Dr. Stephen Ngulu of Ol Pejeta. She has received the pre-medication and is guided gently onto a soft sand bedding for the procedure before she receives the top-up medication to be fully anesthetized.”

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Rhino horn must become a socially unacceptable product in Asia

admin — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 11:12:36 +0000

At current rates of loss to poaching, rhino species will be extinct within our lifetimes. The big problem is demand for their horn from Asia. The market for rhino horn is moving from “traditional” medicine to “investment value” as jewellery and other processed artefacts in the art and antiques market, according to wildlife trade monitors TRAFFIC.

South Africa is at the centre of the problem because it has most of the rhino, and because it now, against international opinion, allows legal domestic trading of rhino horn. This has led to rhino horn being worked to disguise it as jewellery and powder, and exported illegally, principally to Vietnam and China. It is getting ever harder for customs officials to recognise illegal wildlife products.

The relationship between smuggling and law enforcement is like an evolutionary arms race in nature, as each innovation by the smugglers is recognised and tackled by law enforcement, so the criminals innovate and switch strategies.

There can be a tendency to retain an old-fashioned stereotype of “the poacher” as a poor local struggling to feed his family, but the reality is that when it comes to high value products such as rhino horn, the players are often well-organised criminal syndicates involved in other unsavoury activities. The link is unsurprising, given the illegal wildlife trafficking industry is estimated to be worth US$23 billion.

However, South Africa recently undermined efforts to reduce demand by lifting its ban on the domestic rhino horn trade. This has made life a lot more difficult for law enforcement as a legal trade sends out the message that rhino horn is valuable, and so facilitates an illegal trade. The recent release of a Thai rhino kingpin from a South African jail only six years into a 40-year sentence raises further questions of the country’s commitment to tackling wildlife crime.

It’s easy to see why South African game farms would support a legal trade. Rhino horn can be harvested without having to kill the animal, many farms have stockpiles, and farms want to cash in on their stock. Based on the Asian black market value, rhino horn is estimated to be worth US$65,000 per kg. The problem is that rhino horn should not have a value, and indeed has no commercial value outside the illegal trade, driven principally by consumer demand from Asia.

It’s about people

The illegal wildlife trade hurts people as well as animals and plants. Poachers, where caught, are jailed or killed, and their families impacted. Wildlife rangers and law enforcement officers also risk their lives. Desperate people part with cash and hope to invest in false medicinal promise provided by charlatans and criminals. Ecotourism potential is eroded by biodiversity loss – with immeasurable future economic costs.

Veterinary post-mortem of a dead female white rhino in South Africa. The animal wasn’t poached as it still has its horn (regrown after being dehorned for its own protection).
Jason Gilchrist, Author provided

Local communities where rhino and other endangered species live are a key, yet historically often overlooked, factor influencing the sustainability of endangered wildlife populations. All too often the benefits of conservation do not go to local indigenous communities. Community empowerment and integration in wildlife conservation will improve local support and ideally reduce the need and cost of high-tech militaristic solutions.

Reducing demand

Historically, demand for rhino horn was driven by perceived (yet entirely mythical) medicinal benefits. Demand can be reduced, firstly, by ending all legal trade and therefore not giving rhino horn a value. And second, by broadening education programmes to young and old in Asia to inform that rhino horn has no medicinal value. Rhino horn is useless – except to the rhino.

Alongside this, we need to reverse the perception that ownership of rhino horn is a positive status symbol. Society needs to value the live rhino in the wild more than its horn, and rhino horn products should be viewed as a badge of shame, not of honour. As conservation biologist Ian Redmond puts it: “Far from being a status enhancing display, use of rhino horn and ivory now says ‘I support organised crime’.”

This sort of culture shift requires not only education in the classroom through teachers, but beyond the traditional education system. For instance, TRAFFIC targeted businesses in a three-year demand reduction project in Vietnam, while film star Jackie Chan is facilitating social change across Asia:

Demand for product, even with perceived “traditional” motivation, can be reduced: demand for rhino horn dagger-handles from Yemen in the 1970s and 80s, for instance, was effectively closed. We need to do the same again – tackling whatever consumer market stands to gain from rhino horn. However, a hot-off-the-press TRAFFIC report highlights that demand reduction programmes must improve and be evidence-based and targeted in order to be effective.

Endgame

Biodiversity is a global good, and when a species is gone, it is gone forever. The quagga, Tasmanian tiger, passenger pigeon, great auk, dodo, giant tortoises and giant birds – all hunted to extinction. Everyone has a responsibility to contribute to ensuring the rhino does not go the same way. At its simplest, do not support the illegal wildlife trade: do not buy, report suspicions, and spread the word that ownership of rhino horn, elephant ivory, pangolin scales, and other illicit wildlife products is unacceptable.

The link between wildlife crime and legal trade has serious implications for conservation. We need to get the message across that consumption and use of rhino horn and illegal wildlife products are bad news for everybody – not just the animals.

Jason Gilchrist, Ecologist, Edinburgh Napier University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image credits: Simon_G (Shutterstock)

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