The last two northern white rhinos on Earth are a mother and daughter living under 24-hour armed guard at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya. Both are females. The subspecies cannot reproduce naturally. Its only hope is science — and scientists are trying.
The Last Two
At Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, two female rhinos live under 24-hour armed guard. Their names are Najin and Fatu — a mother and daughter. They are the last northern white rhinoceros (*Ceratotherium simum cottoni*) alive on Earth.
The last male, Sudan, died on 19 March 2018. He was 45 years old. His death made the northern white rhino functionally extinct — unable to reproduce without human intervention.
>> "Sudan's death is a cruel symbol of human disregard for nature. We are living proof that without conservation, species disappear."
— Sudan's keepers at Ol Pejeta
How It Happened
The northern white rhino once ranged across Uganda, Chad, Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. By the 1970s, poaching for horn — driven by demand in Asia and the Middle East — had gutted wild populations. Despite years in captivity, the last individuals aged without producing viable offspring. Habitat loss and political instability finished the rest.
The Science That Remains
The story is not over. A consortium of scientists called BioRescue, led by Leibniz Institute IZW and Avantea, has retrieved eggs from both Najin and Fatu and fertilised them with frozen sperm banked from deceased northern white males. As of 2024, 30 viable embryos have been created.
The plan: implant those embryos into southern white rhino surrogate mothers — the northern white's close relative — to carry them to term. It has never been done before in any rhino species at scale. The first surrogates were implanted in 2024.
>> "We are one surrogate pregnancy away from proving this can work. Everything now depends on whether the science holds."
Fatu and Najin will never calve again. But the northern white rhino is not yet gone — it lives in frozen cells in a laboratory, waiting for a surrogate to carry it back into the world.