Amazing News for the Northern White Rhinos

August 22nd, 2019, was an incredibly exciting day on Ol Pejeta. An international consortium of scientists and conservationists completed a procedure that gets us one step closer to saving the northern white rhinos.

The team successfully harvested 10 eggs - five from Najin and five from Fatu, the two females who live in Ol Pejeta Conservancy — a procedure that has never been attempted in northern white rhinos before.

This was a joint effort by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) Berlin, Avantea, Dvůr Králové Zoo, and Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

After the eggs were harvested, they were taken into a KWS helicopter and flown to Avantea Laboratory in Italy where they will be fertilized with frozen sperm from Suni and Saut, two male northern white rhinos, and in the near future the embryo will be transferred to a southern white rhino surrogate mother.

The procedure to harvest eggs from the females was conducted with a probe, guided by ultrasound, which harvested immature egg cells (oocytes) from the ovaries of the animals who were under general anaesthetic. The anaesthesia went smoothly without any complications although these animals had not been immobilized for the last five years.

Najin and Fatu responded well to the procedure and, are back to their normal selves.