Down to the last three: can science save northern white rhino from extinction? (Guardian)

[eppur_se_muova]

Under the watchful eyes of a group of heavily armed guards, three rhinos graze on the grassland of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Most of the world knows that the rhinoceros is threatened, but the status of these animals is in another league. They are the planet’s last three northern white rhinos. None is capable of breeding. The northern white, which once roamed Africa in its thousands, is in effect extinct. The three – named Sudan, Najin and Fatu – are the last of their kind.

In a few months, however, a group of scientists from the US, Germany, Italy and Japan will attempt the seemingly impossible: to rescue the northern white rhino – smaller and hairier than its southern cousin – from the jaws of extinction. In October, they plan to remove the last eggs from the two female northern whites and by using advanced reproductive techniques, including stem cell technology and IVF, create embryos that could be carried to term by surrogate rhino mothers. The northern white could then be restored to its former glory. The procedure would be a world first.

It is an audacious plan – and a controversial one. Many conservation experts believe the resources being used to create northern white embryos would be better spent on saving other rhino species by providing them with protection in the wild. Why try to restore the species if the cause of its extinction has still not been tackled, they ask. Others say that taking a hi-tech approach to species preservation could lull the conservation movement into thinking it would always be able to fall back on science to help reproduce a species once it gets into trouble.

These points are rejected by project scientists. “Unless we act now, the northern white rhino will go extinct. And don’t forget that, once we have developed IVF and stem cell technologies to save it, we will then be able to use them to rescue other threatened species,” said one of the project’s leading scientists, Professor Thomas Hildebrandt, of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin. “For example, there are only three or four rhinoceros from Borneo left in captivity and none known in the wild,” said Hildebrandt. “We could use this technology to rescue them.”
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more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/14/northern-white-rhino-bid-to-save-extinction-threat

[NickB79]

1. Seems like the genetic diversity would be way too small for long-term survival

Even if they fertilized and successfully raised dozens of eggs to birth, you're still working with three individuals.

Maybe if they kept the eggs frozen in storage until the day we have the technology to intentionally induce genetic mutations that are small and controlled enough to not be lethal, but that's still sci-fi technology.

[sue4e3]

2. I say do it lets keep them a little longer