The northern white sub species was first discovered over 115 years ago in 1907 where there was a healthy population and by the 1960s, they were more abundant than their southern white counterparts, with over 2,000 rhinos ranging in the wild. The remaining two northern white rhinos, females Najin and Fatu, reside in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya under constant protection. Functionally extinct means that the number of animals is so small that they no longer play a significant role in ecosystem function or that the population is no longer viable. Years of widespread poaching and civil war in their home range devastated their numbers to the point where they were declared functionally extinct in 2018 when Sudan, the last male in existence, died of old age. The other sub species, the northern white rhino, paints a much bleaker picture. Added to this, is the encroachment of wildlife habitats by human development resulting in vast areas of habitat loss and reduction in rhino populations. Political and economic instability within countries can also increase the threat of poaching. Rhino poaching is big business, one rhino horn can fetch in excess of an incredible £200,000, and criminal gangs are now well-equipped to track and kill rhino. Poaching and illegal trade of rhino horn has continued to increase sharply and remains one of the major reasons rhino are still endangered today. Since the start of the 20th century, rhino numbers, which were at a healthy level of around 500,000, began to drop as human activity such as hunting and poaching impacted on their population. The Paraceratherium linxiaense, recently discovered in north-western China, is believed to have lived 26.5 million years ago, a giant, weighing around 21 tonnes and reaching a height of 23ft, enabling this tall herbivore to graze treetops.įast forward to today, and there are now only around 27,000 rhinos left in the wild outside parks and sanctuaries, making rhinos one of the most critically endangered species on earth. Unfortunately, rhinos are poached in animal preserves, and that endangers even protected rhinoceros populations.The recent discovery of the fossilised remains of a giant rhino species, said to be the largest land mammal ever to have walked the earth, reminds us just how long rhinos have been on this planet. According to a recent National Geographic article, there are no proven medical benefits of rhinoceros horns in humans. Northern white rhinoceros were poached to extinction for their horn, used in traditional Chinese medicine, and believed to have healing properties. The two females located at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy may be the only living members of an extinct species that you can visit in person.

Attempts to impregnate the two females with sperm from other white rhino subspecies have been unsuccessful, although zoologists continue to try other fertilization techniques as well as stem cell technology. Northern white rhinos inhabited parts of Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Uganda and are a subspecies of white rhinoceros. When the last male died there in 2018, the scientific community deemed them recently extinct animals. As such, they are in captivity and under armed guard at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. That is because the last two living northern white rhinoceros are both females. The case for northern white rhinoceros, which are extinct in the wild, is not as hopeful as that of the Spix’s macaw. A closely guarded northern white rhinoceros

Northern white rhinoceros extinct