Efforts to save rare northern white rhino continue
In this July 8, 2011 file photo Nabire, the 27-year-old northern white rhino sits in her enclosure at the zoo in Dvur Kralove, Czech Republic. A zoo official says Friday, Dec. 19, 2014, efforts will continue to save the critically endangered northern white rhinos from extinction. After a recent death of two, there are only five of northern white rhinos left: one at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, one at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic and three in a preserve in Kenya. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)
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In this July 8, 2011 file photo Nabire, the 27-year-old northern white rhino sits in her enclosure at the zoo in Dvur Kralove, Czech Republic. A zoo official says Friday, Dec. 19, 2014, efforts will continue to save the critically endangered northern white rhinos from extinction. After a recent death of two, there are only five of northern white rhinos left: one at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, one at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic and three in a preserve in Kenya. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)
Experts will meet in Kenya next month to discuss ways to save the critically endangered northern white rhinos from extinction.
The recent death of two of the rhinos in zoos has left only five captives left: a female at San Diego Zoo, a femaleat the Czech Dvur Kralove zoo, and two females and a male at Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy.
In 2009, the Czech zoo moved four rhinos to Kenya in hope that the natural environment would be easier for them to breed there than in captivity, but that plan failed.
Premysl Rabas, the Czech zoo's director, said Friday that the Kenya meeting will decide what methods of artificial reproduction options to try: in vitro fertilization, embryo transfer, genetic engineering or a hybrid with a southern white rhino.