We all know that species around the world are going extinct, but no one sees it up close in quite the way James Mwenda does.
Mwenda is a trained forest ranger who protects eastern Africa’s dwindling but majestic rhinoceros population. Working on Kenya’s Ol Pejeta reserve, he’s partly responsible for 90,000 acres with 90,000 black rhinos and two white ones.
The northern white rhinoceros was formerly found in several countries on the African continent but today there are only two left. Just two. And Mwenda is the primary caretaker of both.
Fatu is 19 years old and her mother Najin in 29. Because they are both females, the species is now functionally extinct.
While the rhinos belong to the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic, they have lived at the more spacious Ol Pejeta Conservancy since December 20, 2009. They arrived along with two males – Suni, a male born in 1980 who died from natural causes in 2014 and Sudan, caught from the wild in 1975, who died on March 19, 2018.
The day Sudan died made headlines around the world because it was then we knew that the species could not survive on its own.
Mwenda has been working at Ol Pejeta since 2013 and remembers the deep loss he felt upon the death of Sudan.
But he channels that into caring for the last two of their kind.
He monitors their health, feeds them, washes them, and aids in their protection – believe it or not, they are in need of armed guards around the clock to keep them from harm.
Every day he sees exactly what extinction looks like. He looks it in the face. And he works hard to prevent it, even though it’s inevitable.
Luckily, Mwenda takes his job very seriously. Unable to afford to go to university after graduating high school, he knows the importance of working in conservation and considers it his dream job. But he also feels the emotional weight of what he does.
Tasked with everything from cleaning their pens to running tests in the hopes that in vitro fertilization might produce another white rhino someday, he says his days are both exhausting and inspiring.
“Every day, we try to bring them the best—bring them peace, make sure they’re happy and well-treated.
When people talk about extinction, it looks like a thing that is so far away. But, we’re here witnessing it every day; feeling it through these animals, so it’s emotionally draining. But, at the end of the day, we are inspired.”
And he believes that Fatu and Najin know that they are the last the northern white rhinos:
“I can tell that they feel they are the last of their kind. They feel it. So, through their personalities, they give us ‘lessons’ that we can use for future generations.”
Since IVF is such a complicated process and has never been achieved with this species before, there’s a chance the scientists won’t be successful. For now, all we can do is hope. They have created the first embyros, which seem to be viable, but implanting them is a separate tricky (and expensive) task.
Mwenda has his fingers crossed:
“That is the hope we have; that is what we want to hear—that Sudan and the northern white rhinos are being resurrected. We rely on it so much, and we are waiting, fingers crossed.”
In the meantime, he says, we should not just sit back and hope. First, and most importantly, we should create awareness – tell the world that this has happened and that only two of these animals remain.
We should then carry this awareness on to other living things – realizing that if we failed to see it coming in a species as large as the northern white rhino, we’re no doubt failing to see it in other species, both plants and animals.
Finally, he says, we can offer our support to conservation organizations that take on the task of protecting and caring for these vulnerable species.
If you’re interested in helping Ol Pejeta care for Fatu and Najin, would like to “adopt” an animal (or name one!), or help fund educational endeavors for children around the world, you can click here and learn more.
People can donate however much they’d like, but every penny counts.
Just to give you an indication of the expenses, the IVF treatment for the northern white rhinos still requires another $10 million to develop the rest of the research and procedures needed.
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