Sudan (rhinoceros)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The bull Sudan in the Ol Pejeta Reserve in Kenya (2010)
Sudan (2015)

Sudan ( 1973 in Sudan (now: South Sudan ) - March 19, 2018 in the Ol Pejeta Reserve , Nanyuki , Kenya ) was the last known male northern white rhinoceros in the world.

Life

Sudan was caught in 1975, around two years after its birth, in the region of today's Shambe National Park in South Sudan and brought to the zoo of Dvůr Králové in Czechoslovakia together with five other conspecifics . There he fathered two calves together with Nasima, a rhinoceros cow caught in Uganda : Nabire (born November 15, 1983 and died July 28, 2015) and Najin (born July 11, 1989). The wild population of the northern subspecies of the white rhinoceros had dropped to 30 specimens in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the mid-1990s as a result of poaching ; the last specimens were spotted there in August 2005. Previously, a resettlement campaign from the national park to a more protected reserve in Kenya failed for political reasons. In on-site field investigations in 2008, no northern white rhinos could be detected in the Garamba National Park, the subspecies was therefore officially declared extinct in the wild in 2009. At this point, only eight specimens were still in human care, six in the Dvůr Králové Zoo and two in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park . Since the northern white rhinoceros reproduced poorly in human care, it was decided to move some of the animals from Dvůr Králové to East Africa. There was hope that the animals would mate better in a more natural environment. The private Ol Pejeta reserve in southern Kenya with good infrastructure was selected. Sudan arrived there in December 2009 together with three other animals, the bull Suni and the cows Najin and Fatu. In the reserve, Sudan was guarded around the clock by around 40 armed rangers.

In 2014, another bull (Angalifu) died in the Ol Pejeta Suni in San Diego. This made Sudan the last remaining male northern white rhinoceros. He was then nicknamed last male standing (in German as much as "last survivor" or "last surviving male"). A year later, after a series of investigations, it was found that Sudan was impotent. To increase his social actions, he was given a southern white rhinoceros calf (ringo). He died unexpectedly in 2016. Sudan achieved worldwide attention in April 2017 when he was named the “most sought-after bachelor” as part of a fundraising campaign at the dating company Tinder . This campaign raised around 85,000 US dollars , which went into preparations for in vitro fertilization of the last two female animals of the northern white rhinoceros. Furthermore, Sudan was also included in various scientific studies, for example to identify the differences between the northern and southern white rhinos.

Sudan's health was recently severely impaired due to age; Since the end of 2017, he had been weakened by several diseases on his right hind leg, so that he could no longer get up without help. So his veterinary supervisors in the Ol Pejeta reserve decided to put him to sleep on March 19, 2018. Sudan was survived by only two female northern white rhinoceros, his daughter Najin and granddaughter Fatu. With Sudan's death, the northern white rhinoceros threatens to become extinct shortly. Therefore, scientists now want to try using artificial reproduction to ensure the continued existence of the subspecies. The cost of this is estimated at up to nine million dollars (about 7.3 million euros).

literature

  • Kes Hillman-Smith: Sudan - death of an iconic rhino. Pachyderm 59, 2018, pp. 116-118 ( [2] ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Josef A. Vágner: Occurrence and catching of white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) in the province Upper Nile, South Sudan. Sbornik Vysoke-Skoly Zemedelske v Praze, 1975, pp. 1-5 ( [1] ).
  2. ^ Susie Ellis: Regarding Sudan, the last Male Northern White Rhino. International Rhino Foundation, last accessed March 20, 2018.
  3. ↑ a b Spiegel-Online: In a Kenyan game reserve: The last male northern white rhinoceros in the world died. , last accessed on March 20, 2018.
  4. ↑ a b c Ol Pejeta Conservancy: Sudan - A Tribute to An Icon. , last accessed on March 20, 2018.
  5. ↑ Welt: Fight for Survival: 24-hour watch for the last male rhinoceros , on welt.de, April 17, 2015. Accessed March 20, 2018.
  6. ↑ Kes Hillman-Smith: Sudan - death of an iconic rhino. Pachyderm 59, 2018, pp. 116-118.
  7. ↑ Spiegel-Online Endangered rhino on Tinder: "The most desirable bachelor in the world". , on spiegel.de, on April 26, 2017. Accessed March 20, 2018.
  8. ↑ Colin P. Groves, Prithiviraj Fernando and Jan Robovský: The Sixth Rhino: A Taxonomic Re-Assessment of the Critically Endangered Northern White Rhinoceros. PLOS One 5 (4), 2010, p. E9703 doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0009703 .
  9. ↑ Ivana Cinková and Richard Policht: Contact Calls of the Northern and Southern White Rhinoceros Allow for Individual and Species Identification. PLOS One 9 (6), 2014, p. E98475 doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0098475 .
  10. ↑ Ol Pejeta Conservancy: Sudan's health declining. , last accessed on March 20, 2018.
  11. ↑ Welt: World-famous rhino Sudan is dead , on welt.de, from March 20, 2018. Retrieved on March 20, 2018.
  12. ↑ Ol Pejeta Conservancy: The last male Northern white rhino dies. , last accessed on March 20, 2018.

Web links

Commons : Sudan  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files