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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the sad-state-of-affairs dept.

There are three northern white rhinoceroses left. The last male of this subspecies lives in Kenya and is already quite old for his kind of animal. He is ailing now.

But recently, a secondary and much deeper infection was discovered beneath the initial one and Sudan was taking longer to recover, "despite the best efforts of his team of vets who are giving him 24-hour care", the organisation said.

There are two other white rhinos left in the world – a female named Najin and daughter Fatu, both also living at the conservancy in Kenya. Health problems or their ages – around 28 and 17, respectively – have left them unable to reproduce.

Wildlife experts and conservationists expressed deep regret over the prospect of the northern white rhino completely dying out. Technically, the species is already classified as extinct because it no longer exists in the wild, conservationists said.

The last few there and elsewhere have been protected 24/7 by heavily armed guard to try to slow down poaching. However, poaching and the other underlying reasons for the impending extinction are unlikely to be solved within the next few decades.

Sources:
Last male northern white rhino Sudan falls ill as species edges closer to extinction. South China Morning Post
The world's last male northern white rhino is on death watch. CNN


Original Submission

Related Stories

Genetic Intervention Could Save the Northern White Rhino From Extinction 12 comments

Scientists Hope Lab-Grown Embryos Can Save Rhino Species From Extinction

Rhino embryos created in a lab are raising hopes that high-tech assisted reproduction may help save the northern white rhino, the most endangered mammal in the world. [...] The last male, a rhino named Sudan, died in March. But before the males died off, wildlife experts collected and froze sperm. Now, in the journal Nature Communications, scientists say they successfully have used this stored sperm [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04959-2] [DX] to fertilize eggs taken from a closely related subspecies, the southern white rhinoceros.

The resulting hybrid embryos started to develop in a lab dish. Two were frozen for later implantation into a surrogate rhino, although the researchers note in their paper that "the embryo transfer procedure has yet to be developed and validated in rhinoceroses." Still, the researchers are hopeful that once they get this working with hybrid embryos, they can use the same techniques to produce pure northern white rhino embryos.

To make those, they'll need eggs from the two remaining northern white rhinos. Jan Stejskal, of the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic — where rhinos Najin and Fatu were born — says the team has requested permission to obtain the eggs, "but it's not granted yet." Still, he hopes the research team can go to Kenya to collect them by the end of the year.

Previously: Last Male Northern White Rhino 'Sudan' Falls Ill as Species Edges Closer to Extinction
Last Male Northern White Rhino Dies


Original Submission

Northern (Nearly Extinct) and Southern White Rhinos More Closely Related than Previously Thought 6 comments

Northern white rhino: New hopes for IVF rescue

A new study raises hopes of saving one of the last animals of its kind. A victim of poaching, the northern white rhino population has been reduced to just two females, which are both unable to breed.

DNA evidence shows the rhino is more closely related than previously thought to its southern white cousin. Creating rhino hybrids using IVF is likely to have a positive outcome, say scientists, although this option is considered a last resort.

The white rhino split into two divided populations living in the north and south of Africa around one million years ago. But an extensive analysis of DNA from living rhinos and museum specimens shows the northern and southern populations mixed and bred at times after this date, perhaps as recently as 14,000 years ago.

[...] In July, one team took eggs from female southern rhinos - which number around 20,000 in the wild - and fertilised them with frozen sperm from a male northern white rhino, to create hybrid embryos.

The new study suggests this sort of approach might pay off, given that the two rhinos are closer genetically than once thought. "We think it improves the chances," said Prof Bruford. "It is difficult to predict what might happen if we cross the two subspecies but given the current options for the northern white rhino it becomes a more viable option, should other approaches fail."

Other options include using frozen tissue from a wider pool of northern white rhinos to generate stem cells that have the capacity to develop into eggs and sperm. This would avoid diluting the gene pool, but is more challenging to achieve.

Previously: Saving the Northern White Rhinoceros with Science
Last Male Northern White Rhino 'Sudan' Falls Ill as Species Edges Closer to Extinction
Last Male Northern White Rhino Dies
Genetic Intervention Could Save the Northern White Rhino From Extinction


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Captival on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:26PM (4 children)

    by Captival (6866) on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:26PM (#647772)

    Clone them.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:47PM (3 children)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:47PM (#647786) Homepage

      Make steaks from them, sell those steaks for tens of thousands of dollars each to rich weirdos, donate the proceeds to conservation.

      By the way, if the Whites of South Africa don't get the hell out of there, they too will be extinct. I don't know what kind of crack Whites were breathing when the decided to place their colony sandwiched between the ocean and a gigantic continent full of angry savages. You gotta hand it to those Whites, they sho' is some foolishly arrogant motherfuckers.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 05 2018, @01:30AM (1 child)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday March 05 2018, @01:30AM (#647810)

        Make steaks from them

        Agreed, it's too late for the white rhino - move on.

        donate the proceeds to conservation

        Doubly agreed, the real lesson here is to stem the tide before all we have left is h. sapiens and pond scum. Heh, funny memory of Douglas Adams' proposed origin of life on Earth: seeded here by aliens who expected to grow steaks from scum eaters, maybe this is all just part of their plan, and we're the steaks.

        they sho' is some foolishly arrogant motherfuckers.

        Especially now, 150 years ago it was all the rage to strike out from Europe, kick ass on some foreign people and start a colony of whites - paid well too. 30 years ago the writing was clear on the wall for whites in SA, and I knew some who were leaving then. Ones that are still hanging around in-country must have a special kind of optimism.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @06:40AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @06:40AM (#647883)

          Pretty sure that was Larry Niven, 'Bordered in Black'.
          Douglas Adams had life starting when a time traveller dropped a sandwich. (Dirk Gently series)

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday March 05 2018, @04:22AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 05 2018, @04:22AM (#647860) Journal

        Make steaks from them, sell those steaks for tens of thousands of dollars each to rich weirdos, donate the proceeds to conservation.

        Since they wouldn't know anyway and the rhinos would be already extinct, the interest of shareholders are better served if the rich weirdos are served beef from old oxen under the label of "rhino game meat" and the proceedings are distributed as dividends.
        Remember, it's the primary duty of a corporation to generate profits!

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:58PM (#647790)

    evolution in action

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday March 05 2018, @12:12AM (11 children)

    by acid andy (1683) on Monday March 05 2018, @12:12AM (#647794) Homepage Journal

    There's not much hope for humanity when people still believe that grinding up the horn of one of these animals and eating it will heal them or make them strong. If it wasn't so miserably tragic it would probably be funny.

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
    • (Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @12:23AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @12:23AM (#647796)

      Still more believeable a fable than magical zombie carpenters from the sky.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday March 05 2018, @12:36AM (4 children)

        by acid andy (1683) on Monday March 05 2018, @12:36AM (#647799) Homepage Journal

        On the plus side, the zombie carpenter had useful advice about being nice to people, instead of a scam to profit from the slaughter of rare species for a small and ultimately useless component part.

        --
        If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @02:01AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @02:01AM (#647816)

          "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword"

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @11:11PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @11:11PM (#648244)

            Uh, context. He was saying he would return, not to bring peace between good and evil, but to bring a sword to cut/separate good and evil. Did you know that Satan has a knack for using words to trick weak-minded humans? Just sayin'...

        • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by LoRdTAW on Monday March 05 2018, @02:43AM

          by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday March 05 2018, @02:43AM (#647826) Journal

          *IF* Christ himself wasn't a scam artist or another level of scamming on top of that which turned into the greatest organized scam of all time. If you think about the grandiose stories of christ's miracles such as walking on water, spitting into dirt making mud from said spit and rubbing it onto a blind mans eyes which instantly restored his sight, touching and healing lepers, water to wine and a bunch of other crap I probably tuned out in catholic school; I'ts likely they were completely fabricated by the authors supposedly about 20 years after christ died when they decided to write the damn thing.

          My little theory is that christ was a sort of david koresh / l. ron hubbard type who was a regular joe who realized he was a better grifter than carpenter and switched to preaching about being the son of god to gain their following (jews. am I right, Eth? I kid. anyway...). Then there are the stories of miracles but who's to say that the apostles weren't his inner circle of henchmen who pulled off all the stunts in the background. Take the water to wine miracle for example. Who's to say that after the jugs were placed outside, unobserved, a couple of apostles jumped the fence/wall/whatever, swapped the water for wine (probably stolen) and voila! Miracle! The more "miracles" he pulls off the more convincing he is to the dumber populace, hence why he hung out with a lot of poor people and ne'er-do-wells; they're gullible and desperate. I'm sure he got's lots of free pussy from said whores for blessings and whatnot while he tried to figure out his next move was. I'm sure he also pissed off a lot of people along the way, especially the political and religious elders who don't like people going around claiming to be the son of god and king of the jews. So he had to keep moving around which is why all of his dumb miracles are in different cities and towns. He was either smart and didn't stick around too long until someone caught on or he was ran out of town after he was caught. Either way, he kept pissing a lot of people off his his shenanigans until it got all the way to the top, pontius pilate, the prefect who is like a governor in the USA. He saw christ as a real trouble maker and threat to local order so he did what I can only say is the "sane" thing for his time, get rid of the bastard and make sure everyone, including his little pack of stooges, not to fuck around like that. EVER.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @06:01PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @06:01PM (#648068)

          Do I still count as Christian if I doubt that Christ is God, but still think his ideas of putting people before religious rules and treating them well are good ideals?

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @12:54AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @12:54AM (#647801)

      I've gotten better results with kaiju bone powder anyway.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday March 05 2018, @12:54PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 05 2018, @12:54PM (#647941)

      Oh its not so bad; the dumb part was stacking cash on one side and wagging fingers and expecting for the first time in human history prohibition will work.

      There are two "right" ways to do it.

      Have the conservationists run the whole racket themselves and they get the profits for conservation purposes (If we did this, we'd probably have herds of northern white rhino bigger than cow herds roaming around in Africa, because people like money and the same people growing the herds are getting all the cash, instead of all the cash going to poachers). If its gonna happen, the government can NOT decide to stop it, but they can allocate the profits, and they really screwed up.

      The other "right" way to stop it is find something the Chinese won't eat (well, in theory... good luck with this) and flood the market with fake rhino horn thats actually ground up tibet dirt or whatever if anything repulses the Chinese. Repeat for any other horn eating group. Or really F with them by putting viagra in the made up rhino horn mix. Refuse to have the local equiv of the FDA do any quality control either. I'm just saying... you can go to all the effort of going to Africa to get horns but if the market is beyond flooded with capsules of literal grass clippings then the market will die and nobody in the market can afford to go to Africa because they're too busy chasing microscopic margins on stuffing grass clippings into capsules. See the American supplement market and various chemical and DNA analysis over the years. You can't stop people from smoking tobacco or poaching rhino horns, but the war on cigarettes shows that its quite possible to destroy demand.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @04:51PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @04:51PM (#648033)

      Now we can laugh at all the tiny, limp chinese dicks. They ain't gonna be getting hard any more. Hahahahah!

      • (Score: 1) by Acabatag on Monday March 05 2018, @11:53PM

        by Acabatag (2885) on Monday March 05 2018, @11:53PM (#648262)

        It's common to euphemistically say that rhino horn is considered an 'aphrodisiac' in parts of the world. What we need to do is call a spade a spade.

        Rhino horn is used to make boner pills. How pathetic.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @02:46AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @02:46AM (#647829)

    I thought the last Northern White RINO was Mitt Romney.

    • (Score: 2, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Monday March 05 2018, @05:20AM

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Monday March 05 2018, @05:20AM (#647869) Homepage Journal

      He called me on the phone. He "begged" me to endorse him for the Senate in Utah. I could have said, "Mitt, drop to your knees" and he would have dropped to his knees. He was begging me. Begging me. I wish him well!

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday March 05 2018, @12:54PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 05 2018, @12:54PM (#647942)

      Paul Ryan is further north and is somehow an even bigger loser.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @03:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @03:47AM (#647847)

    And with that, all the money, time, and extraneous resources spent to save the equivalent of a carnie freakshow are lost forever. We could've stopped this. By donating only 7 and an eighth cents a day, we could've paid off ASPCA and moved on with our lives. Now we're three rhinos short and have the responsibility of sending out a pithy AP statement when the last one dies in his pen. Not because it matters, but because it gives us closure. Do not mourn the northern white rhinoceros, for its fate is the same as the miniature ponies that get taken around to C list hospitals. They'll be printed on a brochure and forgotten.

    Damn you, northern white rhinoceros. Why don't you make like rural America and just stay out of the news. I don't have time to feel sorrow, I have a #WITBragDay viral marketing campaign to head!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 07 2018, @02:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 07 2018, @02:22AM (#648828)

    how pitiful this is. we can't even save a few bad ass animals from dying off completely. ridiculous.

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