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. His death made the northern white rhino functionally extinct, unable to reproduce without human intervention.
>> "If there is meaning in Sudan's passing, it's that all hope is not lost."
- Ami Vitale, photographer, writing for 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. Years of widespread poaching for horn and civil war across that range devastated wild populations, and the last known wild northern whites were poached near the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2004. In captivity, every breeding attempt failed, first at Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic and then at Ol Pejeta, where four of the last rhinos were flown in 2009.
The Science That Remains
The story is not over. A consortium of scientists called BioRescue, led by Leibniz Institute IZW and Avantea, collects eggs from Fatu and fertilises them with frozen sperm banked from deceased northern white males. Najin was retired as a donor in 2021, after none of her eggs could be fertilised. By August 2025, 38 pure northern white rhino embryos had been created.
The plan: implant those embryos into southern white rhino surrogate mothers, the northern white's close relative, to carry them to term. In 2023 the team achieved the first rhino pregnancy ever from an IVF embryo, using a southern white embryo as proof of concept. Transfers of northern white embryos began in July 2024, but as of April 2026 none had led to a lasting pregnancy, and new surrogate mothers have joined the programme.
Neither Najin nor Fatu can carry a pregnancy. 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.
_Sources: Ol Pejeta Conservancy, "Rhinos" (northern white rhino history and security). Ami Vitale, "Goodbye Sudan, the world's last male northern white rhino", Ol Pejeta Conservancy, 11 June 2024. Leibniz-IZW press release, "BioRescue consortium ceases egg harvesting on northern white rhino Najin", 21 October 2021. Leibniz-IZW press release, "World's first successful embryo transfer in rhinos paves the way for saving the northern white rhinos from extinction", 24 January 2024. Leibniz-IZW press release, "BioRescue scientists produced three new embryos and began using northern white rhino embryos in embryo transfers", 25 August 2025. Leibniz-IZW press release, "New embryo boosts survival chances for the Northern White Rhino", 22 April 2026._