Getting to bottom of why rhinos vanishing
CHESTER: A team of UK-scientists is collecting rhinoceros droppings for a new conservation initiative to help prevent global extinction of the endangered species.
In a collaboration dubbed ‘‘Saving species with faeces’’, the team from Chester Zoo and the University of Manchester aims to identify causes of poor population growth of Africa’s ‘‘megaherbivores’’, including Eastern black rhinos, Grevy’s zebras and Cape mountain zebras.
A major focus for the £1.1 million initiative is the endangered black rhino, a species successfully bred in captivity at Chester Zoo in recent years and whose excrement helps scientists understand the animal’s health.
‘‘Most of the research we’re doing to assess health and stress involves collecting a lot of poo,’’ Prof Susanne Shultz, of the University of Manchester, said.
‘‘We want to take these models that have been developed on captive animals and apply it to these wild populations . . . and assess its relative health and wellbeing.’’
The team studies hormonal biomarkers present in animal dung to understand stress and reproductive health in wild animals.
‘‘Through the poo we can see how stressed the animals are, what condition they are, their individual health, are they reproducing,’’ said Dr Danielle Gilroy, who is leading a project on another endangered species, the Grevy’s zebra.
There are some 5000 to 5400 ‘‘critically endangered’’ black rhinos living in eastern and southern Africa, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
‘‘We could not just think about zoos but think of populations in zoos and populations that exist inside their natural range, like in Kenya, for example,’’ Dr Sue Walker, head of Applied Science at Chester Zoo, said.
‘‘We think of them as one metapopulation and we can apply the same toolkit to understand why the animals in Kenya might not be breeding as well and what might be impacting reproduction. The most important thing we can do is maximise reproduction in these animals.’’
Kenya had a rhino population of 1258 in 2017, of which 745 were black rhinos, 510 southern white rhinos and three northern white rhinos, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service.
However in March, the world’s last male northern white rhino died in Kenya, leaving only two females of its subspecies alive in the world.