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Saving The Sumatran Rhino | Earth Wise

January 2, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Sumatran rhinoceros is the smallest and most ancient rhino species and is the only surviving species with hair.  It is critically endangered.  Because of poaching and habitat destruction, there are fewer than 50 of them left in the wild and those are scattered in the rainforests of Sumatra and the Indonesian part of Borneo.  Mating encounters between surviving males and females are increasingly rare.

The last male Sumatran rhino in Malaysia died in 2019 but cell samples from that individual are the basis of an ambitious effort in bioengineering.

Researchers from the Max Delbruck Center in Germany are taking skin cells from the deceased rhino and turning them into stem cells.  The hope is to use these stem cells to derive egg and sperm cells to be the basis of assisted reproduction.  Fertilization would take place in a petri dish.  The resultant embryos would then be carried to term by surrogate rhino mothers.

The researchers have reported success generating induced pluripotent stem cells or IPS cells from the rhino skin samples.  IPS cells are able to divide indefinitely and can transform into any cell type in the body.

The next step is to try to cultivate primordial germ cells – the precursors of eggs and sperm.

This work is going on because it is increasingly difficult to preserve the Sumatran rhino population by gathering together remaining individuals in wildlife Reserves.  Females that have not been pregnant for a long time often become infertile because of cyst growth on their reproductive organs, and some are just too old to bear young.

It may take extraordinary efforts like these to save these animals from extinction.

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A second chance for the Sumatran rhino

Photo, posted April 30, 2008, courtesy of Willem V. Strien via Flickr.

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Trading Rhino Horn And Tiger Bone

November 21, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/EW-11-21-18-Trading-Rhino-Horn-and-Tiger-Bone.mp3

Historically, rhino horn and tiger bone were used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat various illnesses, despite the lack of any evidence of their effectiveness.  In fact, rhino horn is simply keratin, a protein that is found in human fingernails and hair.  Rhino horn is used to treat everything from cancer to gout in traditional Chinese medicine.  Similarly, a paste made from crushed tiger bone is thought to treat a variety of ailments, including rheumatism and back pain.

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A Threat to Rhinos

May 31, 2017 By EarthWise

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/EW-05-31-17-A-Threat-to-Rhinos.mp3

A South African court recently overturned a national ban on the trade of rhinoceros horns – a decision that was celebrated by the country’s commercial rhino breeders but slammed by animal preservation groups.  A moratorium on rhino horn trade had been in effect in South Africa since 2009. 

[Read more…] about A Threat to Rhinos

Dehorning Rhinos

September 30, 2016 By WAMC WEB

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/EW-09-30-16-Dehorning-Rhinos.mp3

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were about 500,000 rhinos across Africa and Asia.  By 1970, the number was down to 70,000.  Today, there are less than 30,000 rhinos in the wild.  The number of black rhinos dropped to as low as 2,300 in 1993.  Aggressive conservation efforts have brought their numbers up to over 5,000 today.

[Read more…] about Dehorning Rhinos

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