Die «Sudan», the last male of northern white rhino
The last male Northern white rhino died in Kenya at the age of 45, their guardians announced, leaving two females as the sole survivors of this subspecies. The animal, called Sudan, suffered health complications due to his advanced age, so that by considerably worsening his condition "the veterinary team made the decision to euthanize him," the Ol Peteja nature reserve in Kenya said in a statement where he lived.
When Sudan was born in 1973 in Shambe, in South Sudan, there were about 700 living specimens. In theory, the death of Sudan seals the extinction of this subspecies of rhinoceros. However, scientists have collected their genetic material and are trying to develop in vitro fertilization techniques to preserve this subspecies. Sudan lived in recent years in a reserve of 36,400 hectares in central Kenya, next to the two female rhinoceroses of this subspecies, protected from poachers by armed guards.
"In Ol Pejeta we are sad about the death of Sudan, he was a great ambassador of his kind and will be remembered because it served to alert us to the situation facing the rhinoceros, but also thousands of other species threatened with extinction as a result of unsustainable human activity "said Richard Vigne, director of Ol Pejeta.
Rhinos have few predators in nature due to their size. However, the population of northern white rhinos was severely decimated in Uganda, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Chad due to the extensive poaching of the 70s and 80s, encouraged by the demand for rhino horns for traditional Chinese medicine in Asia and for dagger handles in Yemen. A last wild herd of about 20 to 30 rhinos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo died from fighting in that country in the late 1990s.
In 2008, the northern white rhinoceros was considered extinct in the wild. The rhinoceroses inhabited the Earth for 26 million years. In the mid-nineteenth century its population was estimated at around one million in Africa. In 2011 the western black rhino was considered extinct. Sudan avoided "its extinction in the wild" when it was captured, along with six other specimens in South Sudan and sent in the 1970s to Dvur Kralove Zoo, then Czechoslovakia.
This zoo in the center of the current Czech Republic is the only place in the world where it managed to breed in captivity. The last two females of this subspecies still alive in Ol Pejeta, Navin and Fatu were born in Dvur Kralove. The last birth that of Fatu, was on June 29, 2000.
