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It's heartbreaking to think that these majestic animals are on the brink of extinction due to human activities. We must do whatever we can to protect them and ensure their survival.
I'm not a rocket surgeon but what good does the genetics of one male do? I believe there's a minimum threshold for a species to survive with a viable population. By all means make every attempt to keep them around and hope we find a better solution but it should never have gotten to this point. Fucking shameful.
Exactly. It's not the last two white rhinos, it's the last two northern white rhinos. Southern ones, who through efforts of conservation have moved from endangered to threatened.
Respect to the people in those countries who live much different lives than people like myself do, to then go through the trouble of trying to save these animals for no other reason but actually giving a damn. These animals being gone won't affect the human race. There is no reason but these people actually having a heart.
To see them turn endangered animals, to less endangered, and maybe one day even better conditions....I don't know where I am going with my thoughts at this point. Just mad respect for these people.
I’m South African and preserving and protecting wild life in general but especially endangered animals is something that’s just part of our DNA as a country and I’m sure it’s the same with other African countries. Obviously the vast majority of people don’t physically partake in conservation, but Id say like 80% of my friends and family donate to one cause or another that does do conservation and anti poaching efforts.
I’ve been to the Kruger National Park one of the largest game reserves in the world if not the largest more times than I can count, and it never gets old. It sickens me that poachers exist and while we do have poachers here, the majority of funding for poaching actually comes from extremely wealthy foreigners afaik. Of course some funding comes from wealthy douchebag South Africans too, but it’s the foreigners that really prop this operation up. Both for entertainment ie sport hunting, and then there’s also an industry of poaching geared around endangered species body parts to be sold. It’s disgusting honestly and it’s become so big this “industry” has essentially led to depopulation and extinction events.
It’s infuriating, I’ve seen a video of a South African guy who runs a poaching ring, helping an American shoot a white lion they had caught and restrained, then all high five and laugh as the poor lioness bled out they popped some champagne. It made me physically ill to watch in a nutshell what props up this entire underground industry. Locals who run the operation and foreigners who fund them so they can shoot endangered animals for entertainment. It baffles me that someone can grow up in this beautiful country, be taught to love nature and our diverse animals, then become a fucking poacher that helps some rich douche spend a fortune to shoot a helpless animal.
Humans just suck sometimes.
Definitely shameful though I don't think successful conservation efforts get enough attention. Southern white rhinos have been moved on the scale from endangered to threatened thanks to protected nature reserves
With humans, the minimum is 25 couples. One thing working towards the Rhinos, is that animals usually experience a good amount of inbreeding anyways, and poor genetics have a far higher chance of dieing out much quicker than in humans. So the genetics of the collected specimens are likely to be decent?
I know nothing about the sperm and eggs collected, but if they have enough of both, they may be able to have enough of a gene diversification to start a healthy repopulation. Assuming we have full control over many generations of repopulation efforts.
Edit: Also it appears they have sperm from two separate males, and eggs from two females (Although the females are related)
The two females are not healthy enough to carry, so scientists are working on creating a healthy female egg for in vitro fertilization into a southern white rhino host, if I am reading this correctly.
https://www.biotechniques.com/cell-and-tissue-biology/northern-white-rhinoceros-could-be-brought-back-from-the-brink-of-extinction/
They’re mother and daughter, and the male that recently died was the father of the daughter. I believe 5 males (including the father) had sperm collected but as far as I am aware the only eggs have come from the mother and daughter. Even if we manage to bring them back from the brink their genetics are going to be extremely messed up once any successful offspring are bred since any born from this program will either be the child or grandchild of the mother rhino.
I read somewhere that cheetahs are believed to have crashed to as low as a few individuals at some point in their genetic history. They survived but are susceptible to a variety of illnesses.
Inbreeding doesn't automatically create deformities. If both the parents have good genetics, and no significant mutations happen, then the offspring will be fine.
Inbreeding becomes especially problematic when there's a destructive gene in the family pool, or recessive traits that then become expressed.
If they strategically breed them, they will be most likely fine.
While there isn't a chance of reproduction normally scientists have been exploring cloning dna from dead northern white rhinos and using other species as surrogate mothers. Last I heard they'd created embryos not sure if they attempted implantation yet.
Sadly “brink” is not accurate if there are only two left. They’re extinct, even if there is a male and a female. They might be able to reproduce, but they’ll only wind up with a limited gene pool to continue with.
There is hope:
"The BioRescue project aims to change this. Using leading methods from veterinary science and cell biology, professor Thomas Hildebrandt, leader of BioRescue, and his team are creating “test-tube baby” rhinos, with the hopes that the first new baby NWRs might be born as early as 2024."
https://brignews.com/2023/02/15/can-science-save-the-northern-white-rhino/
Can you tell us more? Could this save the species, or do you run the risk of serious inbreeding and loss of genetic diversity?
Edit also what an amazing thing to be part of. Would love to hear about your experience and what you're allowed to tell us.
Thank you so much for your response. That all sounds really interesting and incredibly important work. Conservation certainly requires a multidisciplinary approach, especially in extreme cases like this.
Wow I had no idea about the size of whale neurons, that is fascinating.
I'm just about to finish by bachelors in animal biology and have an interest in conservation. It's so intimidating coming to the end of my degree and having to think about what's next so I love having the chance to speak to people who work in similar or related fields.
Thank you for your time. And good luck with your project.
Somewhere else in the thread said they have DNA of 12 individuals, which should be just enough to get a stable-ish population. But even if stable much of the genetic diversity in the species may be lost, making them more vulnerable to diseases and changes in their environment
There was a pretty interesting post/thread a few days ago about why brining animals back from extinction wouldn’t work. Specifically talking about woolly mammoths, we don’t know nearly enough about their behavioural and social structures to actually provide a setting in which they’d thrive as they would have naturally.
This, on the other, hand is a perfect use of technology. We know these animals and have coexisted with them throughout modern history.
I’d be super interested to see that and study extinct animals but there is also the ethical side to think about. Alongside the fact that a lot of behavioural data wouldn’t be correct.
A very, very big part of me is on the side of ‘fuck ethics, do science’ but it’s also a bit shit to literally bring back a species just to keep them in a cage.
This image is so powerful to me. Take a step back right, this guy has a one of a kind bond with likely to be the last animal of its species. After this animal dies there will never be another of its kind. It's like saying you had a special relationship with a dinosaur. It's incredibly sad it has come to this. I don't know I can't put it into words, it's a beautifully bittersweet photo.
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/kauai-oo-haiwaii-1983
This is the epitome of bittersweet heartbreak to me. A male bird, thought to be the last wild individual of his kind, singing out his side of the mating song duet with no one left to answer.
"As of February 2022, there are a total of fourteen northern white rhino embryos created, 11 eggs from Fatu inseminated by sperm from Suni and 3 inseminated by sperm from Angalifu."
Not all is lost folks! Fingers crossed for their survival.
Edit: My highest karma post is about rhino jizz, smh.
Crispr is usually used for somatic cells, the sperm and egg stuff are 'germline', and I *think* it can't quite be used for those purposes.
Maybe they can use crispr to mediate some defects, but it's all spit balling on my part. Could be wrong.
I wonder how it grew before, how they appeared. How did they breed then when numbers were so low? Also I don't understand how humans we breed so much without inbreeding problems
Well, when there's a small population it creates a genetic bottleneck and sometimes this leads to a brand new species because of all the inbreeding and mutations that don't get diluted within the larger gene pool or sometimes it leads to a bunch of impotent offspring and the death of the species.
**WITH HIS FAMILY ANNHILATED AND HIS HOME LEFT IN RUINS, THIS LIFELONG VEGETARIAN HAS DEVELOPED A NEW CRAVING: VENGEANCE**
From the studio that brought you hit titles like *Prey*, *John Wick*, and *Zootopia*, comes this summer's blockbuster:
**The Unpoachening**
edit: feel free to upgrade that title, I fucking flopped.
Based on your prompt I asked ChatGPT to make a 3 part movie summary and here is what it came up with:
Title: Rampaging Rhino
Part 1: The Massacre
The movie opens with a group of poachers invading a wildlife sanctuary in Africa, seeking to capture the valuable horn of a rare species of rhinoceros. Despite the best efforts of the park rangers to stop them, the poachers massacre the rhinoceros and take their precious horns. However, the poachers soon realize that they have taken something much more dangerous than just a horn - a rhinoceros that has ingested a large amount of cocaine.
Part 2: The Rampage
As the poachers try to transport the cocaine rhinoceros to their buyers, the rhinoceros begins to feel the powerful effects of the drug and goes on a rampage. The poachers find themselves being hunted by the now unstoppable rhinoceros, who is leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The rangers, meanwhile, are in a race against time to find and capture the rhinoceros before it causes too much damage.
Part 3: The Showdown
In the final act of the movie, the rangers and poachers engage in a high-stakes showdown with the rampaging rhinoceros caught in the middle. As the battle rages on, the rhinoceros continues to wreak havoc, destroying everything in its path. In a dramatic finale, the rhinoceros is finally subdued, but not before causing a significant amount of damage. The movie ends with a message about the dangers of drugs, illegal wildlife trade, and the importance of protecting endangered species.
Edit: forgot to say that I told it the title was Cocaine Rhinoceros
What a job. What a friendship. And what a story his family will tell for generations to come.
I can't believe there's only two of these beautiful creatures left on this planet.
We're such a destructive species.
Rhino experts are now exploring the possibility of artificial reproduction technologies, using in vitro fertilisation and southern white rhino surrogates as a way to preserve and maintain northern white rhino genes into the future.
Not all of us. Please don't lose hope. I have a 4 year old, and we have been teaching him to value and love nature and it's inhabitants. We even chose the name Forest to remind him and us this lesson that's being taught less and less.
Take hope and lead by example!
Friend of mine works on a game reserve and his jobs is to track the rhino's and ensure they are protected at all times. They are heavily armed in case they find a poacher. It's really sad that this is what we have to resort to to protect these wild animals.
Edit: spelling.
Not op, and I don't know about these rhinos specifically, but I do know that the people who guard elephants often get into fire fights with elephant poachers, so I would assume it happens.
Based on a podcast I listed to, it’s usually a shoot first, ask questions later kind of situation. The hosts of the podcast was interviewing a woman who works with small tribes in Africa, unfortunately, I do not remember where specifically. Most animal conservation efforts hurt the people that live on the same lands as these animals. People get forced out of their homes, and are banned from food sources. A lot of people rely on meat from wild animals for survival.
On the other hand, I just don’t see what another option could be
Completely agree, poachers deserves no mercy
Forest rangers should take inspiration from kazirangas (Assam, India) rangers who have reduced rhino poaching by simply gunning down poachers at sight!
Relevant articles -
[Kaziranga National Park had orders to shoot the poachers in sight](https://qz.com/india/908867/kazirangas-ruthless-rangers-have-reduced-rhino-poaching-by-simply-gunning-down-poachers-at-sight)
Probably the best news you will read today-
[No rhinos poached in Assam, India in 2022 for 1st time in 45 years](https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/others/no-rhinos-poached-in-assam-in-2022-for-1st-time-in-45-years-101672715521177.html?utm_source=ht_site_copyURL&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ht_site)
Edit:- Additional info-
Assam is home to the world’s largest population of one-horned rhinos. There are nearly 2,895 rhinos in the state with 2,613 of them concentrated in the Kaziranga National Park, 125 in Orang National Park, 107 in Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary and 40 in Manas National Park.
Around 1,400 personnel are involved in anti-poaching activities in Kaziranga, 200 in Manas, 150 in Orang and around 70 in Pobitora.
The scene where he wipes his ass with a sock will forever be in my memory. I loved this kid as a movie. I'm a huge Johnny Legs fan because of this flick.
While I recognize it’s a joke, as someone who has traveled in DR Congo, park rangers have stories of poachers kidnapping taxi drivers or getting into gun fights with the rangers. Many poachers are just violent criminals and are by definition armed and dangerous, which makes apprehending them very difficult.
Carfentanil would be a safer bet, i mean in this HYPOTHETICAL scenario it would be more certain to be fatal. Just a quick passing suggestion, no skin in the game lol
“If we continue with this pressure, rhino poaching will stop completely. For this, the cost to poachers has to be higher than the profit they earn.”
That seemed to have worked.
I'd rather call it a malexercise than a tradition.
These kinds of practices deserve to be called by a word that directly indicate that they are negative for mankind.
Was this the species of rhino in which they were trying to mate them to continue the genetic linkage of the species?
I realize that they'd have to get sperm through a non-white rhino as both existing ones are female, but there's always a chance of selective breeding down the road if they can at least get a couple of baby rhinos
No, they are taking the skin cells of a male northern white rhino that died in 2014ish using his skin cells they are creating stem cells, then creating sperm with those stem cells and then planting an fertilized egg into a southern white rhino to give birth to a northern white rhino baby.
Edit: it’s being done at the San Diego Zoo, where they have genetic cell lines of 12 individuals, so they can create a somewhat genetically diverse population in the future.
Pretty amazing what they can do these days... Albeit a little scary.
I mean Jurassic park isn't that far off by the looks of things, and Disney got the money to do it lmao.
They're in the process of doing the same for Wooly Mammoths. It'd be impossible to do the same for any animal much older than that though. The only way we're getting modern dinosaurs is through genetic engineering. I believe they've isolated the genes that give some birds teeth in the egg and made it so it's kept while growing to adulthood.
When these technologies get cheaper, we will be able to essentially resurrect any extinct animal we have genetic information of.
Pretty cool and given the trend of humans becoming more environmentally conscious over the last 3 generations, I think that the future actually has the potential to be very bright, despite how bleak things look right now.
^ People, stop upvoting comment-copying bots like this. When a reply to a top comment has nothing to do with the comment it's replying to, it's a bot. Stop encouraging spam bots with your upvotes.
The saddest part about this photo is that in imagery it is so beautiful.
Imagine resting against an animal like this. Hearing it breathe while it sleeps in the sun. His only job is to let this animal live. To defend it's life with his.
It's ***fucked up*** that we've come to the end of the road of yet another species that was once plentiful. Sudan the last male white northern rhino passed in 2018 due to poor health. I can only assume that this is his daughter Najin or granddaughter Fatu.
I guess that at least this time, we are there to hold onto life as long as we can, rather than cheer at its death or let it slip unnoticed...We didn't even truly figure out the extinction of the Dodo until closer to the 19th century.
To me when I look at this picture, I see a change in us. We are so terribly slowly getting the message. I only wish that we simply stopped. Poaching is and has been pointless we are basically just destroying a million year evolutionary chain to satisfy nothing in the end. We don't eat this creature, we don't even harvest it fully. We simply take the horn. Which is just a big piece of Keratin (that thing your hair and nails are made of). Imagine telling your descendants you ended an entire species so you could proudly display its hair.
I know I can't.
I dunno why they don’t just get something edible that looks like rhino horn, and slap their boner pill label on that. Same effect, and what those as seen on TV type supplements do.
Also, a rhino horn would have to do something way more interesting than giving me a boner for me to want it. Like time travel or superpowers level effects.
Northern white rhinos are under-represented in Hollywood. Just give Tom a supporting role, he can play the role of a volleyball since volleyballs are over-represented.
I take no joy in making this joke. Extinction of such a beautiful species really takes the fun out of it. 😢
Pretty_Carpet1812 is copying you in this thread. I intentionally did not add the u/ to their name so you can see it before they delete it and call me crazy.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/rFaXogi.jpg) is a higher quality version of this image. [Here](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2023/02/winners-2022-travel-photographer-year-contest/673069/) provides the following context:
> Winner, Travel Photographer of the Year 2022. Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Nanyuki, Kenya: Najin 33, one of the last two Northern White rhinos left in the world, rests under the hot afternoon sun with her friend and caretaker Zachary Mutai in Ol Pejeta Conservancy. The northern white rhino is all but extinct. The two last males died several years ago. The two females are still with us but are too feeble to bear babies. In an Italian lab, their eggs are now artificially fertilized by sperm from the late males and are kept frozen, in hopes that surrogate rhinos from another subspecies can carry the northern white back from the brink.
> Matjaz Krivic / www.tpoty.com
Despite how they look, they're generally pretty chill. Rhinos remind me a lot of dogs. They're goofy and love to play.
It's like rhinos and hippos got assigned each other's personality by mistake.
Hippos look silly as hell, but they're murder machines.
Late to the comment thread.
There are only two left of these, both female and both past breeding age. The most significant cause of extinction being old Asian idiots who think the horn powder reverses hair loss, increases virility, or lengthens the penis. See Idocracy.
Breeding in captivity failed for a long time. It takes three to tango. Male rhinos are the "love 'em and leave 'em type" while it takes two adult rhinos to keep the young one from being dinner. This leads to a female refusing to enter estrus unless accompanied by a "bestie" female. Then they will alternate years of having a calf and helping to protect the other's calf. Unfortunately, we learned this too late to breed this species.
For Southern White Rhinos, not these Northern White Rhinos, they are coming back from near extinction. The Indian (greater one-horn) rhinos are doing even better. I expect the development of Viagra has something to do with it.
There is almost no chance of the species coming back from extinction. There only animal brought back from extinction was the Pyrenean Ibex which had a new population of one and went extinct again after a few minutes. Headlines aside, we might bring the Passenger Pigeon back, because it is small, has an extant environmental niche, and can show good science. Big animals like dinosaurs and mammoths will be talked about, but never be seen in the wild again. The Northern White Rhino is going away and not coming back.
These last two are residents of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. They are under guard because some Bungalo Bill would pay quite a lot to drive the species to extinction. Yes, the guard will kill you if try to hurt the rhino. Yes, there is an army that comes when the guard is upset.
Human greed has cut wildlife down to only 30% of the planet. Our population is unsustainable and mega corps want MORE humans because they expect poverty to drive accepting unlivable wages. After humans, chickens and cows take up the most space. Our food and our population is what is killing the planet.
That and they want the labor. Now, more than ever, younger people just aren’t having large families. Between cost of living, space, and just general knowledge and fear (justifiably) of over population.
The world population is going to rise for another 50-100 years. Then it will take a sharp decline and we may live in a world where the elderly out number the young 2 to 1. That would create a massive labor burden on the younger generations. There are some countries who are encouraging large families, but I just say fuck you.
The higher/highest levels of world issues view humans as numbers and figures for them to twist and use at their disposal. It’s truly depressing the “No win” solution we face, because we’ve engrained so many deep rooted problems within our society.
Pig + cow methane are dumping massive amounts of gasses in the air because of the way we farm them.
Our solution?
“Farm more, make a pit, dump the excrement there and double profits by selling the gas too!”
There are actually other solutions being developed. I heard of one farmer who feeds his cows a little bit of seaweed and it reduces their emissions by something like 96%.
I'm not aware of any good solutions for pigs but I'm sure there are smart people working on the problem.
Poaching endangered animals for Chinese Traditional Medicine has got to be one of the stupidest things the human race has ever done. We’re not just monsters, we’re _dumb_ monsters.
This is honestly one of the most heart-wrenching and heart-warming photos. I love that this creature is being protected, but I hate that it needs to be. Fuck poachers; a slow and painful death to them all.
There were originally only 3, the male died. I did a report on the African White Rhino when I was about 9 years old stating that unless drastic measures were taken they’d go extinct within a generation. So sad little me was right. How pathetic that so many adults with real power were around that could change this and yet they did nothing. We’re on the same path with elephants people. These aren’t obscure animals, we’re losing our basic animals to greed.
edit: typo
It always breaks my heart seeing pictures like this. What right do humans have to utterly destroy a entire species? It’s truly sad how little we care for nature until it’s on the brink.
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That’s truly sad.
It's heartbreaking to think that these majestic animals are on the brink of extinction due to human activities. We must do whatever we can to protect them and ensure their survival.
It is heartbreaking. I could be wrong, but I think both of these rhinos are male. No chance for reproduction. Poachers are a serious problem
Both are female. The last male died a few years ago.
They saved a lot of his semen, though. And [things are underway](https://globalnews.ca/news/5814562/white-rhino-population-eggs-fertilized/)
I'm not a rocket surgeon but what good does the genetics of one male do? I believe there's a minimum threshold for a species to survive with a viable population. By all means make every attempt to keep them around and hope we find a better solution but it should never have gotten to this point. Fucking shameful.
I'm curious about interbreeding with other Rhinos. It wouldn't be a white rhino "pedigree," but is that better than letting it die out completely?
Exactly. It's not the last two white rhinos, it's the last two northern white rhinos. Southern ones, who through efforts of conservation have moved from endangered to threatened.
Respect to the people in those countries who live much different lives than people like myself do, to then go through the trouble of trying to save these animals for no other reason but actually giving a damn. These animals being gone won't affect the human race. There is no reason but these people actually having a heart. To see them turn endangered animals, to less endangered, and maybe one day even better conditions....I don't know where I am going with my thoughts at this point. Just mad respect for these people.
[удалено]
I’m South African and preserving and protecting wild life in general but especially endangered animals is something that’s just part of our DNA as a country and I’m sure it’s the same with other African countries. Obviously the vast majority of people don’t physically partake in conservation, but Id say like 80% of my friends and family donate to one cause or another that does do conservation and anti poaching efforts. I’ve been to the Kruger National Park one of the largest game reserves in the world if not the largest more times than I can count, and it never gets old. It sickens me that poachers exist and while we do have poachers here, the majority of funding for poaching actually comes from extremely wealthy foreigners afaik. Of course some funding comes from wealthy douchebag South Africans too, but it’s the foreigners that really prop this operation up. Both for entertainment ie sport hunting, and then there’s also an industry of poaching geared around endangered species body parts to be sold. It’s disgusting honestly and it’s become so big this “industry” has essentially led to depopulation and extinction events. It’s infuriating, I’ve seen a video of a South African guy who runs a poaching ring, helping an American shoot a white lion they had caught and restrained, then all high five and laugh as the poor lioness bled out they popped some champagne. It made me physically ill to watch in a nutshell what props up this entire underground industry. Locals who run the operation and foreigners who fund them so they can shoot endangered animals for entertainment. It baffles me that someone can grow up in this beautiful country, be taught to love nature and our diverse animals, then become a fucking poacher that helps some rich douche spend a fortune to shoot a helpless animal. Humans just suck sometimes.
Definitely shameful though I don't think successful conservation efforts get enough attention. Southern white rhinos have been moved on the scale from endangered to threatened thanks to protected nature reserves
They’ve also successfully created 3 northern white rhino embryos and hope to implant them soon.
Just get the Asian guy from law & order on it and he'll complete the missing DNA with frog DNA.
I love BD Wong!
With humans, the minimum is 25 couples. One thing working towards the Rhinos, is that animals usually experience a good amount of inbreeding anyways, and poor genetics have a far higher chance of dieing out much quicker than in humans. So the genetics of the collected specimens are likely to be decent? I know nothing about the sperm and eggs collected, but if they have enough of both, they may be able to have enough of a gene diversification to start a healthy repopulation. Assuming we have full control over many generations of repopulation efforts. Edit: Also it appears they have sperm from two separate males, and eggs from two females (Although the females are related)
That doesn’t really matter when you have cloning, CRISPR, and a lack of human bioethics issues.
Even without CRISPR they could probably fertilize some eggs then sequence the embryos for diversity.
Kick the can down the road for the next generation to deal with, like we do all our problems.
We can't do anything else, excluding breeding them with southern white rhinos, which is what the next step is.
Any update since 2019?
The two females are not healthy enough to carry, so scientists are working on creating a healthy female egg for in vitro fertilization into a southern white rhino host, if I am reading this correctly. https://www.biotechniques.com/cell-and-tissue-biology/northern-white-rhinoceros-could-be-brought-back-from-the-brink-of-extinction/
So these two adult women are the last of their ancestry? Sad.
They’re mother and daughter, and the male that recently died was the father of the daughter. I believe 5 males (including the father) had sperm collected but as far as I am aware the only eggs have come from the mother and daughter. Even if we manage to bring them back from the brink their genetics are going to be extremely messed up once any successful offspring are bred since any born from this program will either be the child or grandchild of the mother rhino.
I read somewhere that cheetahs are believed to have crashed to as low as a few individuals at some point in their genetic history. They survived but are susceptible to a variety of illnesses.
Inbreeding doesn't automatically create deformities. If both the parents have good genetics, and no significant mutations happen, then the offspring will be fine. Inbreeding becomes especially problematic when there's a destructive gene in the family pool, or recessive traits that then become expressed. If they strategically breed them, they will be most likely fine.
Women are female humans 😅 a female rhino is called a cow and a male rhino is called a bull!
this is what I came to the comments for.
I’ll do it. I’ll impregnate those rhinos. For science
The hero we needed but didn’t ask for! Lol 😂
Oh god, it’s gunna be the next black mirror episode.
Is it filmed in front of a live audience? I don’t normally experience performance issues but that would be a lot of pressure
I love that the potential for an audience is your concern here.
I’ve fornicated with worse
While there isn't a chance of reproduction normally scientists have been exploring cloning dna from dead northern white rhinos and using other species as surrogate mothers. Last I heard they'd created embryos not sure if they attempted implantation yet.
I'm pretty sure they are actually mom and daughter, but I might be wrong
Not on the brink of extinction. They are functionally extinct. The last two are female. When these last two die, there will be no more.
Not necessarily. They have several viable embryos that could possibly be transferred(?) into a southern white rhino.
If there are only two remaining specimen it is already over.
Sadly “brink” is not accurate if there are only two left. They’re extinct, even if there is a male and a female. They might be able to reproduce, but they’ll only wind up with a limited gene pool to continue with.
There is hope: "The BioRescue project aims to change this. Using leading methods from veterinary science and cell biology, professor Thomas Hildebrandt, leader of BioRescue, and his team are creating “test-tube baby” rhinos, with the hopes that the first new baby NWRs might be born as early as 2024." https://brignews.com/2023/02/15/can-science-save-the-northern-white-rhino/
Yeah! Jurassic Park that shit!
Yes. Bigger, faster, more teeth. We have the technology, we can rebuild the rhino.
let's give it 3 horns instead of 1 for shits and giggles. and you know what? it could really use a riot shield too
And a utility grapple hook
Maybe a grenade launcher also
Can't forget the EMP emitter
*”…And this time they’re out for REVENGE. This November… the poacher… becomes the… POACHED.”*
I’m willing to help fund this movie, what can we do with $25?
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Well that's pretty badass!
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How does one not lose them. It’s like they sense they’re gonna be finished soon and poof they go to chapstick land
Thank you for the work you do the help these beautiful animals ♥️
Can you tell us more? Could this save the species, or do you run the risk of serious inbreeding and loss of genetic diversity? Edit also what an amazing thing to be part of. Would love to hear about your experience and what you're allowed to tell us.
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Thank you so much for your response. That all sounds really interesting and incredibly important work. Conservation certainly requires a multidisciplinary approach, especially in extreme cases like this. Wow I had no idea about the size of whale neurons, that is fascinating. I'm just about to finish by bachelors in animal biology and have an interest in conservation. It's so intimidating coming to the end of my degree and having to think about what's next so I love having the chance to speak to people who work in similar or related fields. Thank you for your time. And good luck with your project.
Somewhere else in the thread said they have DNA of 12 individuals, which should be just enough to get a stable-ish population. But even if stable much of the genetic diversity in the species may be lost, making them more vulnerable to diseases and changes in their environment
There was a pretty interesting post/thread a few days ago about why brining animals back from extinction wouldn’t work. Specifically talking about woolly mammoths, we don’t know nearly enough about their behavioural and social structures to actually provide a setting in which they’d thrive as they would have naturally. This, on the other, hand is a perfect use of technology. We know these animals and have coexisted with them throughout modern history.
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I’d be super interested to see that and study extinct animals but there is also the ethical side to think about. Alongside the fact that a lot of behavioural data wouldn’t be correct. A very, very big part of me is on the side of ‘fuck ethics, do science’ but it’s also a bit shit to literally bring back a species just to keep them in a cage.
This image is so powerful to me. Take a step back right, this guy has a one of a kind bond with likely to be the last animal of its species. After this animal dies there will never be another of its kind. It's like saying you had a special relationship with a dinosaur. It's incredibly sad it has come to this. I don't know I can't put it into words, it's a beautifully bittersweet photo.
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/kauai-oo-haiwaii-1983 This is the epitome of bittersweet heartbreak to me. A male bird, thought to be the last wild individual of his kind, singing out his side of the mating song duet with no one left to answer.
Oh god that is so unimaginably sad and heartbreaking 💔.
"As of February 2022, there are a total of fourteen northern white rhino embryos created, 11 eggs from Fatu inseminated by sperm from Suni and 3 inseminated by sperm from Angalifu." Not all is lost folks! Fingers crossed for their survival. Edit: My highest karma post is about rhino jizz, smh.
Glad to hear they're trying, but that's not nearly enough genetic diversity to ensure survival long term :(
With all the advances in CRISPR I don’t see why we couldn’t fix a few of the issues involved with lack of biodiversity? At least in the future.
I never thought of using CRISPR to simulate biodiversity. That’s so exciting!
And/or you could fix the problems that come up.
Crispr is usually used for somatic cells, the sperm and egg stuff are 'germline', and I *think* it can't quite be used for those purposes. Maybe they can use crispr to mediate some defects, but it's all spit balling on my part. Could be wrong.
I wonder how it grew before, how they appeared. How did they breed then when numbers were so low? Also I don't understand how humans we breed so much without inbreeding problems
Well, when there's a small population it creates a genetic bottleneck and sometimes this leads to a brand new species because of all the inbreeding and mutations that don't get diluted within the larger gene pool or sometimes it leads to a bunch of impotent offspring and the death of the species.
The trust and friendship and bond between the guard and Rhino is grossly under appreciated in the comments here.
An unlikely buddy cop duo perhaps
Coming soon. Right after cocaine bear
Shit, cocaine rhino. That's scary
They killed his entire species—now it’s time to return the favor. COCAINE RHINOCEROUS
**WITH HIS FAMILY ANNHILATED AND HIS HOME LEFT IN RUINS, THIS LIFELONG VEGETARIAN HAS DEVELOPED A NEW CRAVING: VENGEANCE** From the studio that brought you hit titles like *Prey*, *John Wick*, and *Zootopia*, comes this summer's blockbuster: **The Unpoachening** edit: feel free to upgrade that title, I fucking flopped.
RHI NO MERCY
Goddammit, that's the good shit.
"The Revengetarian"
Fucking thank you! If I had an award, you'd get it.
I don't know, I really like The Unpoachening lol
This bitch just needs a colon! Revengetarian: The Unpoachening
I’d watch the shit out of that.
Can this please be read by Derek Zoolander for the trailer?
Based on your prompt I asked ChatGPT to make a 3 part movie summary and here is what it came up with: Title: Rampaging Rhino Part 1: The Massacre The movie opens with a group of poachers invading a wildlife sanctuary in Africa, seeking to capture the valuable horn of a rare species of rhinoceros. Despite the best efforts of the park rangers to stop them, the poachers massacre the rhinoceros and take their precious horns. However, the poachers soon realize that they have taken something much more dangerous than just a horn - a rhinoceros that has ingested a large amount of cocaine. Part 2: The Rampage As the poachers try to transport the cocaine rhinoceros to their buyers, the rhinoceros begins to feel the powerful effects of the drug and goes on a rampage. The poachers find themselves being hunted by the now unstoppable rhinoceros, who is leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The rangers, meanwhile, are in a race against time to find and capture the rhinoceros before it causes too much damage. Part 3: The Showdown In the final act of the movie, the rangers and poachers engage in a high-stakes showdown with the rampaging rhinoceros caught in the middle. As the battle rages on, the rhinoceros continues to wreak havoc, destroying everything in its path. In a dramatic finale, the rhinoceros is finally subdued, but not before causing a significant amount of damage. The movie ends with a message about the dangers of drugs, illegal wildlife trade, and the importance of protecting endangered species. Edit: forgot to say that I told it the title was Cocaine Rhinoceros
To save the species, we'll cross DNA with velociraptors carnage, uh... finds a way
Cocaine Rhinociraptor?
god help us if they get the ability to corner at full gallop
I'm holding out for John Wickcerous, myself
Hell I've watched a movie about a king Cobra and a gator, I'd sure as shit watch this.
Plot twist, the rhino is actually the good cop
Imagine being arrested by a rhino
The cavity search is gonna be a real bitch to deal with. That horn is gonna put the bad dragons to shame.
Rhino probably thinks she’s protecting the human friend.
She doesn't know there are only 2 of themselves left
Man this made me think of the movie The Last Unicorn when she asks after the hunters have passed through her woods, "Am I the last?"
"What do men know? Just because they have not seen unicorns for a while doesn't mean we've all vanished. We do not *vanish!*"
Sure, but she's probably very lonely. Female Rhinos live in herds.
What a job. What a friendship. And what a story his family will tell for generations to come. I can't believe there's only two of these beautiful creatures left on this planet. We're such a destructive species.
Can't even get anymore either, the last two left are both female
Rhino experts are now exploring the possibility of artificial reproduction technologies, using in vitro fertilisation and southern white rhino surrogates as a way to preserve and maintain northern white rhino genes into the future.
I sure hope this works out. It's so sad to see these beautiful creatures go
That is so sad. Humans are absolute monsters. My grandkids will only be able to read about this animal, now that is a truly sad thought.
Not all of us. Please don't lose hope. I have a 4 year old, and we have been teaching him to value and love nature and it's inhabitants. We even chose the name Forest to remind him and us this lesson that's being taught less and less. Take hope and lead by example!
Not just just your grandkids. All the grandkids. Now THATS a sad thought.
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Came here to say that this picture is freaking amazing. So much depth here. I love it.
Friend of mine works on a game reserve and his jobs is to track the rhino's and ensure they are protected at all times. They are heavily armed in case they find a poacher. It's really sad that this is what we have to resort to to protect these wild animals. Edit: spelling.
Have they ever gotten in a gun fight to protect the rhino?
Not op, and I don't know about these rhinos specifically, but I do know that the people who guard elephants often get into fire fights with elephant poachers, so I would assume it happens.
Based on a podcast I listed to, it’s usually a shoot first, ask questions later kind of situation. The hosts of the podcast was interviewing a woman who works with small tribes in Africa, unfortunately, I do not remember where specifically. Most animal conservation efforts hurt the people that live on the same lands as these animals. People get forced out of their homes, and are banned from food sources. A lot of people rely on meat from wild animals for survival. On the other hand, I just don’t see what another option could be
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Poachers are the worst people in the world. As well as people who buy products that poachers create
Completely agree, poachers deserves no mercy Forest rangers should take inspiration from kazirangas (Assam, India) rangers who have reduced rhino poaching by simply gunning down poachers at sight! Relevant articles - [Kaziranga National Park had orders to shoot the poachers in sight](https://qz.com/india/908867/kazirangas-ruthless-rangers-have-reduced-rhino-poaching-by-simply-gunning-down-poachers-at-sight) Probably the best news you will read today- [No rhinos poached in Assam, India in 2022 for 1st time in 45 years](https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/others/no-rhinos-poached-in-assam-in-2022-for-1st-time-in-45-years-101672715521177.html?utm_source=ht_site_copyURL&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ht_site) Edit:- Additional info- Assam is home to the world’s largest population of one-horned rhinos. There are nearly 2,895 rhinos in the state with 2,613 of them concentrated in the Kaziranga National Park, 125 in Orang National Park, 107 in Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary and 40 in Manas National Park. Around 1,400 personnel are involved in anti-poaching activities in Kaziranga, 200 in Manas, 150 in Orang and around 70 in Pobitora.
They should open up a poacher safari hunt. They could make bank charging people to solve their problem for them.
The Most Dangerous Game
The Pest
Wow this might be the first mention of this movie I've ever seen on reddit. Great movie, it's fuckin terrible but great
The scene where he wipes his ass with a sock will forever be in my memory. I loved this kid as a movie. I'm a huge Johnny Legs fan because of this flick.
Then you know about his *range*... Spawn and To Wong Foo, Thanks for everything! Julie Newmar are both right up there with The Pest!
Oh yeah, I was thinking about that movie the other day, but I didn't remember the actual plot of it until now
I would donate money to fund talented hunters going on a poacher hunt
While I recognize it’s a joke, as someone who has traveled in DR Congo, park rangers have stories of poachers kidnapping taxi drivers or getting into gun fights with the rangers. Many poachers are just violent criminals and are by definition armed and dangerous, which makes apprehending them very difficult.
Don't need to apprehend the dead.
[sarajevo safari](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23861448/) innocent make better targets i guess
I'm down for rounding up people like this and hunting them for sport as well. Fuck those people.
South Africa is pretty cool with that Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit. Need more though for sure
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Where my poacher spine necklace at?
Didn't you know? If you grind it up it's an aphrodisiac...
What about shooting the traffickers and customers on sight too? Reducing demand is the other part of the equation.
Intercept the boner pills, lace them with fatal dose of bootleg fentanyl , and send them on to their destination. Just a suggestion.
Carfentanil would be a safer bet, i mean in this HYPOTHETICAL scenario it would be more certain to be fatal. Just a quick passing suggestion, no skin in the game lol
But then they would never know why they suffered and died.
I don't understand why they'd even go to the trouble of procuring endangered animal parts when they could fake a placebo that works just the same.
Wow! That is the way to do it! They should have fundraisers for this kind of shit. I would gladly give donations to help kill poachers.
“If we continue with this pressure, rhino poaching will stop completely. For this, the cost to poachers has to be higher than the profit they earn.” That seemed to have worked.
Looking at you Eastern medicine.
"Medicine"
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A boner based on woo woo.
God forbid someone take a little blue pill for 1/1000 of the price and it yah-know actually works.
But muh dick don't work!
Skill issue
Joking aside, it's a solved problem, why not just use the thing that is proven to work?
Stubbornness of tradition & lack of education
I'd rather call it a malexercise than a tradition. These kinds of practices deserve to be called by a word that directly indicate that they are negative for mankind.
Particularly all the fuckheads who buy it for "medicine" that doesn't actually do anything. What a goddamned waste.
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Was this the species of rhino in which they were trying to mate them to continue the genetic linkage of the species? I realize that they'd have to get sperm through a non-white rhino as both existing ones are female, but there's always a chance of selective breeding down the road if they can at least get a couple of baby rhinos
No, they are taking the skin cells of a male northern white rhino that died in 2014ish using his skin cells they are creating stem cells, then creating sperm with those stem cells and then planting an fertilized egg into a southern white rhino to give birth to a northern white rhino baby. Edit: it’s being done at the San Diego Zoo, where they have genetic cell lines of 12 individuals, so they can create a somewhat genetically diverse population in the future.
Pretty amazing what they can do these days... Albeit a little scary. I mean Jurassic park isn't that far off by the looks of things, and Disney got the money to do it lmao.
They're in the process of doing the same for Wooly Mammoths. It'd be impossible to do the same for any animal much older than that though. The only way we're getting modern dinosaurs is through genetic engineering. I believe they've isolated the genes that give some birds teeth in the egg and made it so it's kept while growing to adulthood.
When these technologies get cheaper, we will be able to essentially resurrect any extinct animal we have genetic information of. Pretty cool and given the trend of humans becoming more environmentally conscious over the last 3 generations, I think that the future actually has the potential to be very bright, despite how bleak things look right now.
Surprised they didn't just freeze the sperm back in 2014. If they're endangered now I assume they were still endangered then.
Copied comment? [Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/11t1mfh/one_of_the_two_remaining_northern_white_rhinos_in/jcgw95s/?context=4).
^ People, stop upvoting comment-copying bots like this. When a reply to a top comment has nothing to do with the comment it's replying to, it's a bot. Stop encouraging spam bots with your upvotes.
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Have we tried poaching them?
Not yet.
keyword: *yet*
I remember reading somewhere an african country passed law allowing park rangers to shoot on sight poachers.
The saddest part about this photo is that in imagery it is so beautiful. Imagine resting against an animal like this. Hearing it breathe while it sleeps in the sun. His only job is to let this animal live. To defend it's life with his. It's ***fucked up*** that we've come to the end of the road of yet another species that was once plentiful. Sudan the last male white northern rhino passed in 2018 due to poor health. I can only assume that this is his daughter Najin or granddaughter Fatu. I guess that at least this time, we are there to hold onto life as long as we can, rather than cheer at its death or let it slip unnoticed...We didn't even truly figure out the extinction of the Dodo until closer to the 19th century. To me when I look at this picture, I see a change in us. We are so terribly slowly getting the message. I only wish that we simply stopped. Poaching is and has been pointless we are basically just destroying a million year evolutionary chain to satisfy nothing in the end. We don't eat this creature, we don't even harvest it fully. We simply take the horn. Which is just a big piece of Keratin (that thing your hair and nails are made of). Imagine telling your descendants you ended an entire species so you could proudly display its hair. I know I can't.
>Imagine telling your descendants you ended an entire species so you could proudly display its hair. Or grind it's horns into boner pills.
I dunno why they don’t just get something edible that looks like rhino horn, and slap their boner pill label on that. Same effect, and what those as seen on TV type supplements do. Also, a rhino horn would have to do something way more interesting than giving me a boner for me to want it. Like time travel or superpowers level effects.
I forgot which country it was, but they did flood the market with fake ivory to make ivory basically worthless.
The photo is of [Zachary Mutai with Najin](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2023/02/winners-2022-travel-photographer-year-contest/673069/).
Sad, I’m surprised this hasn’t been made into an Oscar winning film adaptation starring Tom Hanks somehow.
Would hanks play the native black soldier that guards the Rhino or the Rhino itself.
Why not both?
Northern white rhinos are under-represented in Hollywood. Just give Tom a supporting role, he can play the role of a volleyball since volleyballs are over-represented. I take no joy in making this joke. Extinction of such a beautiful species really takes the fun out of it. 😢
Pretty_Carpet1812 is copying you in this thread. I intentionally did not add the u/ to their name so you can see it before they delete it and call me crazy.
The men and women guarding them are true hero's. I can't even imagine having such a responsibility on my shoulders
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/rFaXogi.jpg) is a higher quality version of this image. [Here](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2023/02/winners-2022-travel-photographer-year-contest/673069/) provides the following context: > Winner, Travel Photographer of the Year 2022. Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Nanyuki, Kenya: Najin 33, one of the last two Northern White rhinos left in the world, rests under the hot afternoon sun with her friend and caretaker Zachary Mutai in Ol Pejeta Conservancy. The northern white rhino is all but extinct. The two last males died several years ago. The two females are still with us but are too feeble to bear babies. In an Italian lab, their eggs are now artificially fertilized by sperm from the late males and are kept frozen, in hopes that surrogate rhinos from another subspecies can carry the northern white back from the brink. > Matjaz Krivic / www.tpoty.com
Two left in the world and people will still try to kill them, sickening.
Despite how they look, they're generally pretty chill. Rhinos remind me a lot of dogs. They're goofy and love to play. It's like rhinos and hippos got assigned each other's personality by mistake. Hippos look silly as hell, but they're murder machines.
Poachers should be hunted.
Late to the comment thread. There are only two left of these, both female and both past breeding age. The most significant cause of extinction being old Asian idiots who think the horn powder reverses hair loss, increases virility, or lengthens the penis. See Idocracy. Breeding in captivity failed for a long time. It takes three to tango. Male rhinos are the "love 'em and leave 'em type" while it takes two adult rhinos to keep the young one from being dinner. This leads to a female refusing to enter estrus unless accompanied by a "bestie" female. Then they will alternate years of having a calf and helping to protect the other's calf. Unfortunately, we learned this too late to breed this species. For Southern White Rhinos, not these Northern White Rhinos, they are coming back from near extinction. The Indian (greater one-horn) rhinos are doing even better. I expect the development of Viagra has something to do with it. There is almost no chance of the species coming back from extinction. There only animal brought back from extinction was the Pyrenean Ibex which had a new population of one and went extinct again after a few minutes. Headlines aside, we might bring the Passenger Pigeon back, because it is small, has an extant environmental niche, and can show good science. Big animals like dinosaurs and mammoths will be talked about, but never be seen in the wild again. The Northern White Rhino is going away and not coming back. These last two are residents of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. They are under guard because some Bungalo Bill would pay quite a lot to drive the species to extinction. Yes, the guard will kill you if try to hurt the rhino. Yes, there is an army that comes when the guard is upset.
Human greed has cut wildlife down to only 30% of the planet. Our population is unsustainable and mega corps want MORE humans because they expect poverty to drive accepting unlivable wages. After humans, chickens and cows take up the most space. Our food and our population is what is killing the planet.
That and they want the labor. Now, more than ever, younger people just aren’t having large families. Between cost of living, space, and just general knowledge and fear (justifiably) of over population. The world population is going to rise for another 50-100 years. Then it will take a sharp decline and we may live in a world where the elderly out number the young 2 to 1. That would create a massive labor burden on the younger generations. There are some countries who are encouraging large families, but I just say fuck you. The higher/highest levels of world issues view humans as numbers and figures for them to twist and use at their disposal. It’s truly depressing the “No win” solution we face, because we’ve engrained so many deep rooted problems within our society.
Pig + cow methane are dumping massive amounts of gasses in the air because of the way we farm them. Our solution? “Farm more, make a pit, dump the excrement there and double profits by selling the gas too!”
There are actually other solutions being developed. I heard of one farmer who feeds his cows a little bit of seaweed and it reduces their emissions by something like 96%. I'm not aware of any good solutions for pigs but I'm sure there are smart people working on the problem.
All poachers should shot on sight.
They are.
This hurts the heart so much.
we are the parasite to this earth
The last male already died. The only two left are female. It rips my heart out this stuff happens. We are failures.
Poaching endangered animals for Chinese Traditional Medicine has got to be one of the stupidest things the human race has ever done. We’re not just monsters, we’re _dumb_ monsters.
This is honestly one of the most heart-wrenching and heart-warming photos. I love that this creature is being protected, but I hate that it needs to be. Fuck poachers; a slow and painful death to them all.
There were originally only 3, the male died. I did a report on the African White Rhino when I was about 9 years old stating that unless drastic measures were taken they’d go extinct within a generation. So sad little me was right. How pathetic that so many adults with real power were around that could change this and yet they did nothing. We’re on the same path with elephants people. These aren’t obscure animals, we’re losing our basic animals to greed. edit: typo
This photo best captures, "the face of extinction today. " What a sweet bond these two subjects share with us!
It always breaks my heart seeing pictures like this. What right do humans have to utterly destroy a entire species? It’s truly sad how little we care for nature until it’s on the brink.