No-one’s Ark: Northern White Rhino
IUCN Status: Critically Endangered
This is an extract from Human Nature: How to be a Better Animal, part of Chapter 6’s list of ten animals that I would choose to save first.
Described on his Tinder profile as “the most eligible bachelor in the world,” Sudan the Northern White Rhino passed away in 2018. Suffering from crippling illness, old-age, and infection, his carers were forced to euthanise him in a tragic end to years of valiant protection. His previous 24hr guard was dismissed, and media headlines around the world ran stories about the passing of a species. Sudan was the last male Northern White Rhino. His daughter and granddaughter are all that’s left now, and neither of them has been able to carry a pregnancy to term.
It doesn’t get more depressing than that. In the last years of Sudan’s life, the Ol Pejeta conservancy that housed him shifted mountains to try to prevent the unthinkable. The Tinder profile set up for Sudan was part of a $10 million fundraising campaign. From this, a cutting-edge cell culture project was launched that could potentially save his kind. Sperm from 12 other males has been preserved in frozen form, and if this can be paired with one of the females’ eggs then a rhino embryo could be born. A female from a related rhino species could easily act as a surrogate mother, raising the infant as her own. It may sound far-fetched, but that’s because there simply aren’t any options left. As Sudan’s profile said: “I don’t mean to be too forward, but the fate of my species literally depends on me. I perform well under pressure… 6ft (183cm) tall and 5,000lb (2,268kg) if it matters.”
In the years since Sudan’s passing, little progress has been made. Despite bringing together a team of top scientists from 5 continents, no rhino embryos have resulted nor is a pregnancy imminent. Sudan’s carers say of him, he “stole the heart of many with his dignity and strength.” If science succeeds in raising the dead, it will be a true miracle and testament to Sudan’s legacy. As it stands, though, the Northern white rhino looks to go the way of the Western black rhinoceros, which was declared extinct in 2011.
Rhinos have been the face of conservation for decades, so it’s hardly surprising that they’re battling extinction. Whether the Northern white rhino is a species in and of itself, or whether it ought to be grouped with its Southern counterpart is a matter of some debate. What is indisputable is that these animals used to roam across East and Central Africa for millennia, and now none remain there. The white rhino of Southern Africa fares better with some 20,000 to its name, but shockingly this species too was once on a knife edge.
As the 19th century drew to a close, the Southern white rhino was thought to be extinct. With hunting and habitat loss forming a fatal duo across the entirety of its range, few were surprised at the loss. As it happened, though, the species was not quite extinct. Twenty surviving rhinos were found in a remote patch of South Africa, and the area was promptly set aside as a national park. From its establishment in 1895, the Hluhluwe-iMofolozi Park- the first nature reserve in Africa- stood as a beacon of hope for the Southern white rhinoceros. Slowly, rhino populations recovered under the protection they were afforded, provided with a pristine environment in which to thrive.
By the time 1950s came around, the stage was set for expansion. Operation Rhino was formed by the national park authorities, taking rhinos from this now-stable population and introducing them to safe zones across the country and abroad. For the few fortunate souls who have never wrestled a rhino, they aren’t easy to move. Starting with a blank slate, new methods were devised to transport such bulky beasts over long distances. Tranquiliser darts were often shot from a helicopter, big crates truck-loaded in, a blindfold tied around each animal’s head, and lots of strong men with ropes used to do the heavy lifting. Though the rhino population is still less than 10% of what it once was, the improvement from 1900 to the present day is thousandfold. The only blemish to their recovery has come in the form of poaching.
If you knew an animal was worth half a million dollars, would you kill it? Perhaps not. What if your family was starving, living in a mud-brick house, unable to afford a torch to see the snakes on the ground at night? The motivation is obvious, greed infectious, and rhinos make temptingly large targets for any man with a gun. Several ‘rhino wars’ have been announced when poaching numbers soared, meaning heightened conflict between authorities and poachers.
The first of these was in the late 20th century, when the oil boom in the Middle East saw a spike in demand for ivory. Wealthy businessmen in Yemen sought out the material as a status symbol. Larger demand meant higher prices, and so more people were tempted to try their hand at the black market trade. The crisis eventually abated with better rhino protection and civil war in the Middle East paring down demand for the product. But over a decade on, the second rhino war hit Africa when an ivory craze popped up in Vietnam and created a whole new flourishing market. As you’ll know from the quiz you took in the Preface, this is beginning to subside, but the threat of poaching is never far away.
On a positive note, the plight of the rhino has sparked some truly innovative solutions to be devised. Fake horns have been made out of horsehair, with the intention of disrupting the market and reducing demand for the real thing. Keratin, the material that makes up rhino horns, is also found in horsehair, birds’ beaks and human fingernails, so the idea isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds.
One South African citizen took this to another level when he sent all his toenail clippings to the local Chinese embassy in regular deliveries, encouraging others to do the same. Although the idea (understandably) never took off, it did work as an excellent publicity stunt and undoubtedly left the embassy staff extremely confused. Truth be told, other anti-poaching measures are much sadder: dehorning rhinos or injecting their horns with poison to make usage in traditional medicine unsafe.
Whenever a species is revived from a few individuals, the genetic diversity of the population is severely compromised. Northern Elephant Seals now number 239,000 all of which have descended from 20 original survivors of large-scale hunting. In New Zealand, a single female black robin can trace her lineage through all of the 250 black robins alive today. Rhinos likewise are at a severe disadvantage from their limited gene pool. This makes them less able to adapt to changing environments, and more likely to produce offspring with crippling defects. Prevention is better than cure for declining animal populations. The challenge comes in being cognizant of all threats an animal faces and redrawing our goals as creating healthy ecosystems- not warding off extinction.
I add the white rhino to my ark as a reminder that conservation is a fight against the less scrupulous side of ourselves, and that hard-won victories can be the most rewarding. The Javan and Sumatran rhino species have only 100 animals between them, so we must learn from Sudan never to repeat our past mistakes.
