Pregnant white southern rhino could save white northern rhino

A southern white rhino called Victoria has become pregnant at San Diego Safari Park through IVF and has raised hopes that she could perhaps one day become a surrogate mother for the related northern white rhino, a species teetering on the brink of extinction. There are only two northern white rhinos left on earth, a mother and daughter who are not able to bear any offspring. They currently live in a wildlife preserve in Kenya. Conservationists hope that by combining the eggs of the two remaining female rhinos and the conserved sperm of the last northern male white rhino "Sudan",  who was put down in 2018 because of health reasons, they will be able to avoid the species' extinction. The northern rhino's predicament of near extinction came about mainly through poaching, which is mostly caused by poverty. High prices for rhino horn continues to fuel the grave threat to the species and, even as recently as 2017, around 1000 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa.

It is truly astonishing how humans only make up 0,1% of the world's living creatures, including bugs, worms, trees, and animals, and yet they cause the extinction of many species and pose the greatest danger to flora and fauna.  According to the Guardian, humans alone have wiped out about 83 percent of all mammals in the wild and about half the plant species that ever existed. The only animals whose population is increasing is livestock kept by humans for consumption. Let's keep positive that the northern white rhino can be saved in light of these circumstances.

For more information on human impact on wildlife: https://www.ibtimes.co.in/humans-account-0-1-life-earth-have-eradicated-most-other-living-things-769794