Daniel Schneider
Vagner. The charismatic Vagner was a chancer, a P.T. Barnum character who had the backing of the communist government for his efforts to bring exotic animals to Eastern Europe.
To ensure supply, Vagner struck shady deals with African warlords, running Soviet arms to Uganda and other countries in exchange for wildlife export permits.
Conditions at Dvur Kralove Zoo near the Polish border were unconventional, to say the least. Seven rhinos were kept in a pen with stone walls, and keepers wandered among them freely.
Vagner’s children used to herd the rhinos into a line, and even play leapfrog over them.
Despite his questionable methods, Vagner was a committed conservationist whose breeding scheme seemed at first to be working.
Sudan was mated with Nasima, and their first calf, a male called Nabire, was born in 1983 but died at Dvur Kralove just three years ago. The second, a female called Najin, is now 40 years old.
Sudan and the baby rhinos pulled in the crowds, but the breeding experiment went sour. Sudan became confused and aggressive towards females. When he gored one of them, his keeper Mirek rushed into the enclosure and was killed as the female picked him up with her horn and dashed him against a wall.
Today we know that northern white rhinos cannot thrive in zoos and need space if they are to breed happily. But that knowledge came too late. Vagner died in 2000, but his rapidly dwindling band of rhinos lingered on in the zoo, until 2009 when Sudan and the only other surviving northern
whites, his daughter Najin and granddaughter Fatu (father unknown) were shipped to Africa.
The hope was that in the Kenyan heat and a more natural habitat, the old male might feel like one last attempt at mating. But that ambition was at least a decade too late.
Sudan was fertile but no longer had the strength to perform. He was catapulted to global fame after the death of the only other male northern white, Angalifu, at San Diego Zoo in California in 2014.
American wildlife activist Daniel Schneider tweeted a picture of Sudan looking forlorn in his pen at Laikipia.
“Want to know what extinction looks like?” read the caption. “This is the last male northern white rhino. The Last. Nevermore.” The tweet went viral, reposted endlessly by distraught animal lovers and conservationists.
Seeing an opportunity, fundraisers at Ol Pejeta signed Sudan up to dating app Tinder, posting his photo and a brief biography. Declaring him to be “the most eligible bachelor in the world”, Sudan’s profile read: “I don’t wish to be too forward, but the fate of the species literally depends on me. I perform well under pressure.” Tinder users could swipe across his picture, not to arrange a date but to donate money.
That wasn’t enough for many smitten devotees, some of whom made a pilgrimage to the park to be photographed with him. Actor Liz Hurley was one of those who posed with him.
That BBC documentary last year Sudan: The Last of the Rhinos showed the emotional reaction of many visitors, some of whom broke down at the sight of Sudan wearily munching grass, the very last of his kind.
So many film crews came that keepers nicknamed him “the Hollywood rhino” and limited his schedule to one shoot per day.
Ultimately, the only hope for Sudan and his species lay with IVF treatment.
It is still possible a northern white will one day be born, either via IVF or cloning should science permit. Sudan’s genetic material has been collected with that in mind. But clinging to such slight hope is to ignore his poignant legacy. What happened to his species can happen to any.