The Tragic Demise of the Northern White Rhino

Sudan was the last Northern white rhino male of his species.  He died of natural causes in March.  He is survived by two female Northern white rhinos at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy where Sudan lived out his last few years.

In the last decades, efforts to save the species by protection agencies and organizations were put into effect too late, and when the Northern white rhino was already in demise.

The number of rhinos first plummeted across Africa during colonial-era mass hunting, and habitat was turned over for agriculture, livestock, plantations and urban developments. The poaching crisis in the 70s and 80s was fuelled by a demand for Traditional Chinese Medicine and Yemeni dagger handles, and this is when Northern white rhinos and black rhinos became extinct in Uganda under Idi Amin, and in the Central African Republic, Sudan and Chad.

The Ol Pejeta Conservancy is working on ways to prevent the species full extinction.  However, it is unlikely that this sub-species of the white rhino will ever reproduce naturally.  The last remaining Northern white rhinos have all been inter-related, and IVF in rhinos is very complex, and has only yielded ten rhino births in the past. And IVF is unlikely to be successful in the two remaining females, both of whom have reproductive problems.

Ami Vitale is a National Geographic photographer who was the last photographer to shoot Sudan.  She met Sudan nine years ago when he was at a zoo in the Czech Republic, in the thick of pollution and humanity.  Vitale said she thought it was so unfair that the rhino had survived thousands of years, but that he could not survive humans.

Vitale says that she had mainly focused on human tragedies, but that when she met animals on the brink of extinction, she decided to expand onto other subjects.  She says that she realized that all the issues she was covering, whether it be poverty or health, always depended on nature for a favorable outcome.  Today, Vitale, uses nature to talk about our home, our future, and where we are going.

The tragic demise of the Northern white rhino is a reminder that the future of nature is the future of all humans.  The extinction of a species has repercussions on other animals and humanity.  We can stop the same fate from happening to the Northern white rhino’s cousins: the Javan and Sumatran rhinos.

According to the WWF, these remaining rhino populations are dangerously small. The WWF is helping to strengthen anti-poaching efforts, monitoring the illegal trade of rhino horns, and promoting controlled and sustainable logging to help manage protected areas.

Now we can take action and be prepared to save the Critically Endangered rhinos.  By working with local communities to raise awareness, people can preserve and protect their way of life, landscape and wildlife.

Strict protection of rhinos, and creating a sense of ownership in the local people, offer the most hope for the survival of all wildlife.

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