Longleat rhinos in IVF bid to save endangered cousin

A RHINO is sedated as her eggs are harvested at a British safari park to help save her distant Kenyan cousins from extinction with world-first IVF treatment.

Northern white rhinos are hanging on by a thread, with just three surviving in Kenya – male Sudan and two females.

They are too old to reproduce naturally, so scientists are pioneering an IVF process to help them. Nine eggs were taken from three more common southern white rhinos at Longleat Safari Park. They will be fertilised with southern rhino sperm in a lab in Italy.

If it works, it will be repeated with the northern species. Jon Merrington, head of safari at Longleat, said “To extract the eggs is 1.5m inside the animal. It’s a complicated procedure.”

HANGING ON Sudan, last northern white rhino male DEEP SLEEP Sedated as her eggs are extracted SAD We told of Sudan PIONEERING Eggs will be fertilised in lab