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[00:00.69] Scientists in Berlin announced recently the first successful embryo transfer in a white rhinoceros.

[00:10.52] The transfer, which occurred in a southern white rhinoceros, offers hope for saving the northern white rhino from completely dying off.

[00:22.74] The white rhinoceros includes two different subspecies, the northern and the southern.

[00:30.44] The last male northern white rhino died in 2018.

[00:36.02] Only two female members of the subspecies remain.

[00:40.80] Neither of them can carry a baby.

[00:44.52] Southern white rhinos are more numerous.

[00:48.77] Researchers hope to use eggs and sperm from northern white rhinos to produce embryos that will be put into southern white rhino surrogate mothers.

[01:01.52] A surrogate is something that performs the duties of something else.

[01:07.63] To test the plan, scientists said they transferred the embryo of a southern white rhino into a surrogate southern white rhino mother at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on September 24, 2023.

[01:26.49] However, the research team only learned of the pregnancy after the surrogate mother died of a bacterial infection in November 2023.

[01:39.24] The embryo was discovered during an examination of the body after death.

[01:46.14] Even with the death, researchers found reasons to be hopeful.

[01:52.25] The international BioRescue team, a group backed by the German government, confirmed recently that the operation had produced a successful pregnancy of 70 days, with a well-developed 6.4-centimeter-long male embryo.

[02:12.17] "We achieved together something which was not believed to be possible," said Thomas Hildebrandt of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research.

[02:24.92] "That is really a milestone to allow us to produce northern white rhino calves in the next two, two and a half years," Hildebrandt said.

[02:36.61] The northern white rhinoceros subspecies has only two known examples left in the world.

[02:44.58] The Ol-Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya says that Najin, a 34-year-old, and her 23-year-old offspring, Fatu, both cannot naturally reproduce.

[02:59.72] In 2018, the last male white rhino, Sudan, was 45 when he was euthanized because of age-related problems.

[03:11.14] He was Najin’s father.

[03:13.27] Scientists stored his semen and that of four other dead rhinos.

[03:19.64] Some conservation groups have argued that it is probably too late to save the northern white rhino using the method known as in vitro fertilization.

[03:32.13] The species once lived in Chad, Sudan, Uganda, Congo and Central African Republic, but human conflict has caused the creature to disappear.

[03:44.61] Critics say the efforts made to save the northern white rhino should instead go to save at-risk species that have a better chance to survive.

[03:56.30] About 20,000 southern white rhinos remain in Africa.

[04:01.61] That subspecies and another species, the black rhino, are increasing in number after illegal hunting nearly caused their disappearance.