RapportFondation 2025 V02 EN light - Flipbook - Page 54
Supporting SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
2024 REPORT
KENYA
LET’S PAVE THE WAY TO SAVE
the northern white rhinoceros
AMOUNT COMMITTED TO DATE: WE CONTRIBUTE
THROUGH TIME-INVESTMENT OF OUR TEAMS.
2021 > PRESENT
For several years, the Pairi Daiza Foundation has been pursuing its efforts to save the northern white rhinoceros.
Only two female individuals – both of them infertile, sadly – of this subspecies remain anywhere in the world. The
Pairi Daiza Foundation is supporting the BioRescue Project, a consortium of scientists who are trying to save this
subspecies through in-vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer techniques. The idea? To implant an embryo from a
northern white rhino produced in vitro into a southern white rhino, acting as a surrogate mother.
A huge challenge! Although the embryo transfer technique is already well established in humans and in some
domestic animals, such as horses and cows, applying this technique to rhinos required the creation, development,
testing and validation of new procedures and equipment. The BioRescue Project team had to design and optimize
tools to pinpoint and access the location needed to implant a tiny embryo into a two-tonne rhino.
© BioRescue Project – Jan Zwilling
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