PRAGUE — Experts will meet in Kenya next month to discuss ways to save the critically endangered northern white rhinos from extinction.
The recent death of two of the rhinos in zoos has left only five captives left: a female at San Diego Zoo, a femaleat the Czech Dvur Kralove zoo, and two females and a male at Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy.
In 2009, the Czech zoo moved four rhinos to Kenya in hope that the natural environment would be easier for them to breed there than in captivity, but that plan failed.
Premysl Rabas, the Czech zoo's director, said Friday that the Kenya meeting will decide what methods of artificial reproduction options to try: in vitro fertilization, embryo transfer, genetic engineering or a hybrid with a southern white rhino.
