10 More Eggs Harvested From The ‘Only’ 2 Northern White Rhinos

Kenya: ‘Ten eggs were extracted from the last two remaining northern white rhinos, a small effort made to save the subspecies from extinction,’ said international team of scientists

The process of harvesting eggs was done at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. The scientists said, ‘They hope to use them to create viable embryos that would be transferred into surrogates since neither the two female rhinos  Najin and Fatuwill can carry a pregnancy to term.

The process was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, ‘The ovum pickup went smoothly and without any complications’, added by the team from Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and Safari Park Dvur Kralove in the Czech Republic .

The harvested eggs were immediately flown to the Avantea Laboratory in Italy. To complete the process by artificially inseminate the eggs with frozen sperm from now-deceased northern white rhino bulls. The last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died in March 2018.

3 Embryos are already created from previously extracted eggs. The female southern white rhinos, another rhino subspecies, at Ol Pejeta will serve as surrogate mothers.