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Writer's pictureGaurika Mathur

Living on the Edge

Somewhere deep in a Kenyan forest lies Borana Natural Reserve where two white female rhinos are living on the edge of their lives.

Heavily armed men placed in a strategic order, deployed in this natural reserve protect these two enchanting white female rhinos on the verge of being extinct. These armed men have the most difficult task in the world and that is to provide round the clock surveillance and protection to prevent the extinction of the last of the Northern white rhinos.

Africa otherwise known for its vividly hot and humid weather is now bearing the crunch of global warming. Temperature in the region is dropping and the area is getting rather cold and chilly. Deep within Kenya's Laikipia upland, thick cloud hides the spires of Mount Kenya and as darkness falls, the temperature plummets.





These rhinos stay on the wet grass with a minimum of 3 heavily armed Kenyans. A 100 metres ahead stand 2 Northern white rhinos. These heavily armed guards are a part of an organisation named SAS, trained professionally to shield the species from blood hands of poachers. The wise words of the organisation SAS protecting these rhinos says : "If anyone is involved in killing rhinos he's robbing the whole world and its inhabitant the right to security and unauthorised personals will be shoot dead”. Though in my opinion a feeling for security for animals never really existed since the arrival of human race. However the truth is that in today’s world even we don’t feel safe in our own space.

Currently the only two Northern white rhino, the last survivors, Najin and Fatu, are both female and unequipped for supporting a pregnancy. Numerous believe that Najin and Fatu will be terminated with zero chance of returning. The two that stay experience their lives continually encompassed by constant outfitted monitors. In 2018 the last living male rhino, named Sudan was brutally killed by the poachers despite being in a guarded facility, seemingly damning the species to obliteration. In spite of our horrendous greed there is a ray of hope. Just as people were superintend for the destruction of the northern white rhino, many people are venturing up to possibly save the species, in account of creative and logical methods.

An international consortium of researchers called BioRescue, led by Thomas Hildebrandt of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) within the Berlin, has given a solution to save the northern white rhino from being extinct. According to these researchers with the use of advanced reproductive technologies, eggs from Najin and Fatu can be blended in with frozen sperm removed from annihilated male northern white rhinos. If fertilisation occurs, the undeveloped organisms will be embedded into a female southern white rhino who will, ideally, give birth. All this might sounds inexplicable, as the technique is new, the time periods is tight and the entire endeavour is fiendishly complicated. The rhinos must be sedated and afterward the ovaries need to be found with a large ultrasound machine. When the eggs are found and collected, they must be dispatched to a research facility in Italy to be treated within an extremely short span of time. It's a Nail-gnawing procedure.

One element gone wrong and the entire project along with many years of hard work will be down the drain. As will the fate of the Northern white rhinos.

Northern White Rhinos is just one of the many examples of many such species who are on the verge of being extinct and its all done for the never-ending greed of human race.


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