Then it is a race against time to extract as many more eggs as possible from the living northern white females. This has been attempted in southern white rhinos but has yet to be successful. Now scientists have to develop a technique to transfer the embryos into a surrogate rhino. The oocytes from Najin and Fatu were airlifted to a laboratory in Italy, where they will be fertilised with cryogenically frozen sperm-of which there are samples from four deceased males-likely by the end of the week. The northern white rhino is on the brink of extinction In July 2018 the first-ever rhino embryos were created, a hybrid of southern and northern white rhino. He explained that after the discovery that the two females were infertile in 2014, over 15 European zoos had given the green light for their their southern white rhino females to undergo the newly-developed egg extraction technique. "It was a great success, yesterday ten oocytes were harvested which was about the number we hoped for" said Jan Stejskal, of the Dvur Kralove Zoo in Czech Republic, which in 2009 sent four northern white rhinos to Kenya in a bid to encourage them to breed. The rhinos underwent a highly risky procedure carried out by a team of international vets, which saw them anaesthetised for almost two hours, and their eggs extracted using techniques that have taken years of research and development. Fatu has degenerative lesions in her uterus and Najin has weak hind legs which could cause complications if she fell pregnant. Two females, Najin, 30, and daughter Fatu, 19, are the only survivors of the subspecies of white rhino, and live under 24-hour armed guard at Ol Pejeta. Science is the only hope for the northern white rhino after the death last year of the last male, named Sudan, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya where the groundbreaking procedure was carried out Thursday.
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