Handlers think they have some idea, and believe Eesha may be getting close to delivery, based on hormonal changes and her swelling udders. The normal gestation is 16 to 18 months, a long wait and a significant difference in potential due dates, especially when it’s not clear when conception occurred. Handlers have been conducting weekly thermal imaging to track the baby’s progress, catching moments of kicking and wiggling in recent days.īut it’s still not clear when the calf will arrive. “It’s been such a very long time coming, 15 years in fact, so we are absolutely thrilled about the prospect of a healthy, rambunctious southern white rhinoceros calf,” Safari West owners Nancy and Peter Lang said in a statement. Ultrasounds later confirmed a calf in the making. Handlers already had been monitoring Eesha’s hormone levels to try to understand her reproductive cycles and saw changes last year that indicated pregnancy, Smith said. His arrival marked a notable change in vibe of the rhino enclosure, where the introduced pair shortly engaged in the assertive behavior typical of courtship, including breeding attempts. He had sired several offspring elsewhere. Then came Ongava, now 25, in June 2021 as part of a recommended match from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ white Rhino Species Survival Plan. “We spent a lot of time trying to get them in the mood,” Smith said, but neither one proved more than a platonic companion to Eesha. Another male, Waldie, later joined the small crash - part of the normal trade of animals between zoos and wildlife facilities to try to improve health and reproductive success among animals. She came paired with a young male named Mufasa, on a breeding loan, said animal collections curator Nikki Smith. “White” comes from the Afrikaan’s word for “weit,” or wide, which refers to the animal’s wide, squarish mouth, evolved perfectly for grazing down large swathes of grass.Įesha’s journey to parenthood is part of plan to contribute to the population that started with her arrival in 2008 as a 4-year-old. Though called “white” they are actually dusty gray. About 16,000 individuals are believed to exist in the world. Click here to view this embed.Įesha is a southern white rhinoceros, listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. The Safari Park says the work may be applicable for other rhino species, including the critically endangered Sumatran and Javan rhinos.įor news and updates, visit /victoria.This device is unable to display framed content. The study, which has yet to be published, can be found at j.mp/rhinostem. So the cells created have a healthier genetic profile. Unlike earlier methods, it doesn’t use viruses to deliver genes that help convert the cells. Loring and Ryder are co-authors of a recent study describing how stem cells were produced from four northern white rhinos with a method they say is superior. This is what will be implanted into the southern white rhino surrogate mothers. These will be united by in vitro fertilization to create an embryo. Thawed cryopreserved tissue will be converted into the artificial embryonic stem cells, then matured into egg and sperm cells. The rhino project is even more complicated. They will be matured into brain cells of the type destroyed in Parkinson’s, then implanted into the patient’s brains. These induced pluripotent stem cells, as they are called, are to be created from the patients themselves. Loring is leading a separate project to use the cells to treat Parkinson’s disease.
He shared a Nobel Prize in 2012 for his discovery. Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka demonstrated that adult mammalian cells can be turned into artificial embryonic stem cells. The technology to put these cells to use finally arrived in 2007. He established a cryobanked collection of tissue from these animals, known as the “Frozen Zoo.” Ryder suggested deep-freezing tissue from endangered animals, in the hope that future technology could recreate whole animals from these cells. The project’s roots go back decades to a dream inspired by Oliver Ryder, a geneticist at San Diego Zoo Global, the zoo’s conservation arm. So the zoo and allied researchers like Loring have had to invent the technology as they go along. Much of the rhino reproductive system hasn’t been studied before, she said. “That’s awesome,” Loring said from Germany.
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