Scots scientists to save one of rarest animals on the planet

WITH only 13 of the creatures left struggling to survive on the plains of the Congo, the northern white rhinoceros is one of the most threatened species in the world.

Plagued by poachers and with its habitat fast disappearing, the magnificent beast is now on the critically endangered list.

But new hope could be on the horizon, as Scottish scientists are hoping to use an innovative technique to save the creatures from extinction. It involves a pioneering genetic process that merges its stem cells with those of its cousin, the southern white rhino, to create a new animal, called a chimera.

It would be the first time the process has been used to try to preserve a species facing extinction in the wild – and, if successful, it could be used to save other endangered animals.

Poachers and loss of habitat in the one place where the northern white rhino still lives, the Garamba National Park in the Congo, has put the species' survival in grave danger.

But Professor Bob Millar, a reproductive biologist and a director of the Medical Research Council Reproductive Sciences Unit at Edinburgh University, thinks he could have hit upon the solution.

He is applying for funding to try out the new technique, which mixes the embryo of the more common southern white rhino with cells from its threatened cousin.

"We have a very ambitious idea to create chimeras, where we use the embryo from the southern white rhino and we introduce cells that we have stored away from the northern white rhino," he told The Scotsman.

This creates rhinos that have a mixture of sperm and eggs from both species. The chimeras are then encouraged to mate with each other in captivity, and they produce both northern and southern white rhinos, which can then be released back into their respective species in the wild.

"We think it's very ambitious. If we succeed in this, it could be a major breakthrough in protecting this species that is disappearing," Prof Millar said.

He has already enlisted the help of Professor Sir Ian Wilmut, the scientist behind the creation of Dolly the sheep, who has expressed an interest in becoming involved.

Prof Millar is hoping to obtain about £250,000 in funding from science bodies, and he said that, although it was always a "roll of the dice" whether such bids were successful, he was feeling enthusiastic.

With so few of the precious animals left in the wild, he said the whole group of 13 could be wiped out very easily by poaching or disease. By creating chimeric animals in captivity, he thinks this could guarantee their survival.

"By creating these chimeras, we are trapping the genetic material in other animals and we can breed out the northern white rhinos," he said.

"The important thing is that we have trapped the genetics in an animal that is going to live for a long time."

In contrast to the northern species, there are more than 11,000 southern white rhinos in the wild, mainly in South Africa. Some are in the Lapalala Wilderness Reserve, and the chimeric embryos would be transplanted into female southern white rhinos there, which would, hopefully, give birth to chimeric animals.

Once the chimeras breed, producing northern white rhinos, Prof Millar would aim to release them into the wild as soon as possible.

"The sooner that we can put these animals back into the wild the better," he said.

The chimera technique has been used successfully in mice, but never before in wild animals, or to try to help save a species facing extinction.

If it is successful, Prof Millar thinks it could be used to help other animals that are facing a similar plight.

"This has never been done before, and it's much more likely to be done than cloning," he said.

He hopes that, if his team is granted funding, he could be putting the technique to use within the next few years, as the technology for the process is already well developed.

He said desperate measures could be necessary when a species is so close to extinction.

"Sometimes when it gets desperate, like with the northern white rhino, you have got to go for broke," he said.

But Dr Sue Lieberman, director of the species programme at the conservation organisation WWF International, is not convinced. She said: "The reason the northern white rhino is on the verge of extinction is because of poaching and the loss of habitat. If we breed new ones, there will still be nowhere to put them in the wild, so what is the point?"

She thinks it is not the best way to use the limited money, time and energy available to try to save the rhinos, and instead says efforts need to be made to work in the Democratic Republic of Congo to try to save the animals' habitat and put a stop to poaching.

"We need to put our energy and our precious resources into protecting these species in the wild," she said. "This sounds very innovative and very 21st century, but I think the most important thing to do is work with the rhino species on the ground."

But Professor Paul De Sousa, the group leader at the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Edinburgh, was more optimistic.

"I think it's a tremendous opportunity," he said. "It is most definitely the first time this would have been done."

He said a similar technique had already been carried out successfully in mice. "It has not been accomplished in another species (except mice], and maybe it's quite presumptuous to say it can now be done in a rhinoceros," he said. "But I'm pretty confident that, if we have the capacity to culture rhino skin cells, which we do, then there's nothing to stop us."

Unlike Dr Lieberman, he thinks both scientific progress and conservation techniques are required to save species.

"I think we should engage in multiple parallel endeavours to address the whole of the problem," he said. "I wouldn't for a minute say that this, above all else, is the solution.

"Nor do I think that investment in habitat alone is the solution."

Professor Mike Bruford, an expert in endangered species at Cardiff University, said: "It's certainly the first time I have heard if this being done in rhinos."

He has reservations about how easy the process would be to carry out in practice, and said: "Instinctively, I think it's going to be far more tricky than this professor is saying."

Prof Bruford added: "The northern white rhino is doomed to extinction unless something dramatic is done."

A technique already being used by colleagues of Prof Millar in Berlin to try to save northern white rhinos is artificial insemination – normally used to help women become pregnant.

Scientists fly over wild rhinos in helicopters and shoot them with darts to incapacitate them. Then an electrical ejaculator is used to obtain a sample of semen.

That is inseminated into female northern white rhinos in zoos in Europe, in an attempt to encourage them to reproduce and to increase the size of the gene pool.

Time running out as poachers slaughter the few survivors

MANY years ago, northern white rhinos ranged across Uganda, Chad, Sudan and the Congo.

Today, their numbers are heavily depleted with confirmed sightings limited to just one part of the Congo plains.

Poachers trading in the animals' precious horns are responsible for slashing the population from 500 to 15 in the 1970s and 1980s.

Rhino horns are treasured for medicinal purposes in some parts of the world and can fetch thousands of pounds on the black market.

Although their numbers started to recover in the 1990s after a vigilant anti-poaching campaign, illegal killing has intensified in the past decade and now there are just a handful of the creatures left.

Unless urgent action is taken to protect the remaining northern white rhinos, conservationists say they could be wiped out within years.

In the Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the remaining 13 northern white rhinos continue their struggle to survive.

The civil war that has crippled the Congo for much of the past 40 years has taken its toll on the park's wildlife.

There are also about 10 northern white rhinos in zoos, many in Eastern Europe. This, according to Professor Bob Millar, is because Ugandan dictator Idi Amin exchanged them for arms with some Eastern European countries in the 1970s.

Garamba, in the north-east of the Congo, was established in 1938 and is one of the oldest national parks in Africa.

It is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In January 2005, the government approved a two-part plan to save the northern white rhinos. The first step was to relocate the animals to a wildlife sanctuary in Kenya– which is yet to happen.

The second part of the plan commits the government in Congo to step up conservation efforts so that the rhinos in captivity can be returned once it is safe.

The grasslands of Garamba are also home to about 6,000 elephants and 100 Congo giraffes – also the last remaining in the world.

Huge numbers of elephants have also been discovered dead by conservationists, slaughtered for their ivory tusks.

Some conservationists say more than 1,000 elephants have been killed in the past year.

About 150 park guards patrol Garamba but they lack the resources to combat the poachers, and there is no military presence to provide support.

Human and animal reproduction experts join forces

THE team behind the ambitious bid to save the northern white rhino has been set up to bring together a mix of specialists in human and animal reproductive science.

Professor Bob Millar is director of the Medical Research Council's human reproductive sciences unit in Edinburgh – made up of 100 researchers and attracting about £5 million of funding each year.

Now, in an effort to extend his focus to the survival of endangered species, he has created the Institute for Breeding Rare and Endangered African Mammals.

The institute, which will be officially launched tonight at Edinburgh Zoo, is uniquely made up of a mix of human reproductive scientists and experts in wild mammal conservation.

The team is working to find out more on the reproductive behaviour of Africa's most threatened species.

They include the Ethiopian wolf, of which there are only about 400, pygmy hippopotamus and African wild dogs. Very little is known about the reproductive cycles of these animals and some of the research is being done at Edinburgh Zoo, which has pygmy hippos and African wild dogs.

Scientists are examining the animals' droppings to find out about hormone levels and females' reproductive cycles.

Some of the puzzles they will be trying to solve include why fewer male pygmy hippos are born than females, and whether the ovarian cycles of female African wild dogs are influenced by the presence of a male.

The group aims to find out whether fertilisation techniques normally used to help humans get pregnant can help endangered species reproduce.

As well as artificial insemination – already used in northern white rhinos – these could include in vitro fertilisation and sperm and egg banking.

Prof Millar said the research into creating white rhino chimeras was at the cutting edge of what they are trying to do. He said: "This is one extreme of the kind of things we do. There are many more practical things that we also do.

"I'm delighted scientists will be able to share their knowledge to build an understanding of the reproductive biology of these endangered species so that we can apply assisted reproduction techniques to complement other conservation efforts."