The northern white rhinoceros species had four surviving members, that is, until the recent death of female rhino Nola in the San Diego Zoo. Today, only three elderly northern white rhinoceros walk upon the earth, and with every passing day the species comes closer to extinction. The two females, Najin and Fatu are infertile besides being in late maturity. Sudan, the only male, has low fertility.
By the time conservationists tried to rescue the species from heavy poaching in 2009, the four survivors were much too old to breed and even inter-breeding attempts with the southern species proved unsuccessful.
The proposed solution to prevent complete annihilation of this species is to freeze the eggs and the sperm of the trio and to combine DNA from skin biopsy and postmortem samples of previous survivors. The surrogate will come from the southern white rhinoceros species, a related and more healthily populated species, for the resulting embryos. Which does bring to mind the 'Jurassic Park' film's storyline of resurrecting long-gone dinosaurs into becoming pre-historic park attractions through DNA recreation.
The subject of the extinction of the northern white rhino species, however, is a highly debated topic. A number of experts believe that the northern white rhinos are actually a subspecies of the southern species. In this case according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which is the global organisation that manages the Red List of Threatened Species, there is no distinction between these two and that the white rhinos in general still have a very good population size.
The theory of extinction was brought into play when Dr. Colin Groves, a Biological Anthropology professor at the Australian National University, proposed that the white rhinoceros species actually are of two kinds: the Northern and the Southern classifications. Dr. Richard Emslie of the IUCN says that the issue really is how a species should be defined and, in this, taxonomists and conservation biologists still need to reach a unified stand.
Still and all, if the proposed species propagation for the northern white rhinoceros should eventually prove successful, this would: 1) chalk up a victory toward ecological protection, 2) add to the southern rhino population making conservation biologists happy and 3) satisfy taxonomists in saving the northern white rhinoceros species from total decimation.
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