Northern white rhinos once ranged across the savannas of central Africa. Poaching and prolonged armed conflict, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, drove the wild population to zero in the 2000s. The last confirmed wild sightings were in Garamba National Park.
Two animals survive: Najin and her daughter Fatu, both at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, guarded continuously. Neither can sustain a pregnancy. Najin has hind-leg and other health problems, and Fatu has a uterine condition that rules out gestation. The last male, Sudan, was euthanised in March 2018 at an estimated age of forty-five.
The remaining route is assisted reproduction. Oocytes are collected from Fatu, fertilised in vitro with sperm frozen from deceased males, and stored as embryos, with the plan being to transfer an embryo into a southern white rhino surrogate. Embryos exist and a proof-of-concept southern white pregnancy has been achieved, but no northern white calf has yet been born, and the founder genetics are extremely narrow.