The end of Sudan

No, not the country, but this magnificent rhino.   

He was the last living male northern white rhino.   These animals had once, not so long ago, roamed the plains and bush of north western Uganda, Sudan, Chad and the DRC, in Garamba National Park.   In the 1960's and 1970's they were plentiful, but then came poaching and civil war.  Rhino horn is made of kerotin, the same material as our finger nails and hair, but in the middle east and China it is considered to be very valuable as an aphrodisiac, and also as dagger handles in the Yemen.   It is said to be worth more than its weight in gold.

Northern whites are considered by some scientists to be a subspecies of the white rhino; with 'southern' whites being fairly abundant in Kenya and points south in Africa.   Some books consider the two 'subspecies' to actually be separate species, maybe due to separation several thousand or more years ago, like Darwins finches and the Galapagos tortoises, for example.   I think it might depend on whether the scientist you speak to or the book you read 'lumps' or 'splits' the two groups together.   I favour the 'splitting' and think it more than likely that the northern white rhino was a separate species.  But now, as good as extinct.  


News reports read:-

The world's last male northern white rhino has died, the Kenyan conservancy taking care of it said, leaving only two females of its subspecies alive in the world.  Ol Pejeta Conservancy said in a statement it had made the decision with wildlife officials and his previous carers to euthanise on Monday the 45-year-old rhino, named Sudan, due to the rapid deterioration in his condition.   Sudan was being treated for age-related complications that had affected his muscles and bones and also gave him extensive skin wounds.

The rhino had spent two weeks in late February and early March lying in his pen due to discomfort from a deep wound on his right hind leg.   "His condition worsened significantly in the last 24 hours; he was unable to stand up and was suffering a great deal," Ol Pejeta said. "The veterinary team from the Dver Kralove Zoo, Ol Pejeta and Kenya Wildlife Service made the decision to euthanise him."

Sudan had previously lived at the Dver Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic before being transported to Ol Pejeta Conservancy, about 250km north of Nairobi, where he lived with the last two females of the same species, 27-year old Najin and 17-year old Fatu.    After all attempts at getting him to mate naturally failed, conservationists last year put Sudan on dating app Tinder, hoping to raise enough money to pay for a US$9 million fertility treatment. 

Theoretically, the death of Sudan assures the extinction of this subspecies of rhino.

However scientists have gathered his genetic material and are working on developing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) techniques to preserve the subspecies.

The northern white rhino population in Uganda, Central African Republic, Sudan and Chad was largely wiped out during the poaching crisis of the 1970s and 80s, fueled by demand for rhino horn in traditional Chinese medicine in Asia and dagger handles in Yemen.

A final remaining wild population of about 20 to 30 rhinos in the Democratic Republic of Congo was killed in fighting in the late nineties and early 2000s, and by 2008 the northern white rhino was considered extinct in the wild.

Four fertile rhinos, two males and females, were moved from the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic to Ol Pejeta in Kenya, with high hopes that conditions similar to their native habitat would encourage breeding.  However, despite the fact that they were seen mating, there were no successful pregnancies.  Further efforts to mate a male southern white rhino with the females - and thus conserve some of the northern white genes - were also unsuccessful.

The other male rhino, Suni, died of natural causes in October 2014.

"Sudan was the last northern white rhino that was born in the wild. His death is a cruel symbol of human disregard for nature and it saddened everyone who knew him," said Jan Stejskal, Director of International Projects at the Dvur Kralove Zoo.

"But we should not give up. We must take advantage of the unique situation in which cellular technologies are utilised for conservation of critically endangered species. It may sound unbelievable, but thanks to the newly developed techniques even Sudan could still have an offspring."

Very sad .... and all due to greed and stupidity on the part of the arch-killer, Homo sapiens .... man.

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Later ... I've just seen this:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/rhino_poaching