One of the last surviving Northern White rhinoceroses died last week in a Czech zoo.
Nesari (1972 – 2011)
A 39-year-old northern white rhinoceros has died at a Czech zoo, further reducing the world's dwindling population of the endangered animal, an official said Friday.
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The rhino was brought to the zoo in 1975 from Sudan. Nesari's death leaves the zoo with one remaining northern white rhino, 30-year-old Nabire.
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(F)ew of these rhinos are now left: two at a zoo in San Diego while three or four who are believed to live in Sudan have not been seen since last year.
Source
Imagine being the very last one.
This is Max:
The man with him was there to guard him from poachers. It is not known if Max survives.
The (Czech) zoo in December 2009 sent four . . . northern white rhinos to the Ol Pejeta reserve in Kenya in the hope that they would breed better in a natural environment. Nesari was not included in the group because of her age and disease. "At the time of the transport, veterinarians predicted she would live for no longer than six months. It was actually a miracle that she lived until this spring," zoo spokeswoman Jana Myslivečková told MfD.
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"Northern white rhinos are the world’s rarest large mammal," Dr. Rob Brett, Africa regional director of Fauna & Flora International and member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, (IUCN) African Rhino Specialist group, said in a December 2009 press release when the four rhinos were transported to Africa.
"They are listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and are thought to be extinct in the wild. Moving them … is a last bid effort to save them and their gene pool from total extinction," Brett said at the time.
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Northern white rhinos once dotted wide swaths of Africa.
The Northern White Rhino (Ceratotherium simum) formerly ranged over parts of north-western Uganda, southern Chad, south-western Sudan, the eastern part of Central African Republic, and north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Poachers reduced their population from 500 to 15 in the 1970s and 1980s. From the early 1990s through mid 2003, the population recovered to more than 32 animals. Surveys in 2000 indicated that the population had started recovering, with 30 animals confirmed in 2000, and possibly six others. Since mid 2003, poaching had intensified and reduced the wild population to only 5 to 10 animals (7 actual count worldwide). The 5 known remaining Northern White Rhinos that were in Garamba National Park appear to have died, making the Northern White Rhino now extinct in the wild apart from the last chance efforts by the Ol Pejeta Conservancy to reintroduce it in a wild state.
Source
On December 20th, 2009, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy welcomed four special new arrivals to the conservancy. Najin, Fatu, Sudan and Suni are four of the world’s last remaining eight Northern White Rhinos. All of the animals were translocated from Dvur Kralove Zoo, which up until late 2009, had been their home in the Czech Republic.
The transfer is aimed at providing the rhinos with the most favourable breeding conditions in an attempt to pull the species back from the verge of extinction. It is thought that the climatic, dietary and security conditions that the rhinos will enjoy at Ol Pejeta will provide them with higher chances of starting a population in what is seen as the very last lifeline for the species.
Ol Pejeta Conservancy
(Fatu and Nijian, two of the Northern White rhinoceroses who live in the Conservancy)
The Northern white rhinoceroses who were transported had their horns sawed off to protect them from poachers. They were also fitted with radio transmitters.
Dehorning was a vital procedure for the four rhinos. Not only does it allow the horns to grow back to a natural shape once the animals are out of a captive environment, but it will also stop potential injuries once the animals are re-introduced to each other in the larger fence area.
Source
May we do everything we can to save this beautiful species.
Helping the Northern white rhinoceros.