The last northern white rhinoceros male, Sudan, died on March 19, 2018. The end of an evolutionary rope that has stretched back millions of years. His death caused major pain in the African community. The veterinary team working with Sudan tried their best to keep him alive as long as possible but he was 45 years old, which is ancient for a rhino. He, and two other female white rhinos, Najin and Fatu, were living in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. Since Sudan died, the two females left will live out their final days in an existential twilight, a state of limbo scientists call “functionally extinct”. It is a heartbreaking situation for any species of animal to live in. No matter how big or how small. In Sudan’s final days, he could barely walk or even stand up. He was covered in scrapes and scratches, which caused him major pain at any movement.
In his lifetime, he had made it through many close encounters with lions, elephants, baboons, other rhinos, and many other animals. His caretakers fed him bananas stuffed with painkillers, 24 pills at a time, in an attempt to ease the pain of his final days. In his final moments on the earth, he was surrounded by people who loved him. Many tourists came to say goodbye. Everyone got very emotional because they knew they were touching a primordial giant about to slip off the face of the earth, into an endless void we call “death”.
By the end of his life, Sudan had become a global celebrity, living under 24/7 protection from multiple guards and personal caretakers who scratched his rough skin and said goodbye. Finally, the veterinary team euthanized Sudan. He took a few heavy breaths and then passed away. His two living descendants, Najin and Fatu, were nearby the entire time this whole debacle was going down. They had no clue that their father and grandfather had just died, or that they were the last northern white rhinoceroses left on the face of the planet.
However, that was not the end of their job. As soon as he had passed away, the veterinary team got to work. They extracted the little sperm that he had left, packed it into a cooler and rushed it to a lab, removed Sudan’s skin in big sheets, and boiled his bones in a vat. They were preparing a gift for the distant future. Years later, Sudan would be reconstructed in a museum alongside Tyrannosaurus Rexes, dodo birds, wooly mammoths, and many other prehistoric beasts that have gone extinct. Children will soon learn that there once lived a thing called a “northern white rhinoceros”. But, no matter how hard we try, we will probably never bring back the white rhino.
Now that it is only Najin and Fatu against the world, scientists are trying their best to extract egg cells from the two, in hopes of finding another male rhino they can artificially inseminate. Trying to help their species the best that they possibly can. They extract eggs every three to four months, then airlift them to a lab in Italy, where they are processed and stored away. Scientists are currently trying their best to bring back the white rhinos by producing embryos in a lab, rather than in the wild.
