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The Takins I had no idea! I was thinking the initial founders for babirusa, Slender-Horned Gazelle, and Dhole, all of which I think had five or less founders at the beginning.

~Thylo
 
Jambo said:
SDSP and Embryo Plus South Africa have together collected eggs from 9 year old female Southern White Rhinoceros, Nikita, in a step towards genetically recovering the Northern White Rhino.

San Diego Zoo Researchers Retrieve Rhino’s Eggs to Recover Critically Endangered Species
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This isn't the plan I thought they were pursuing. Even when Nola was alive and on an episode of The Zoo, it was explained that they intended to initially do IVF on southern whites with southern white eggs and sperm, and if they carried successfully, they would use eggs recreated through DNA of the last remaining black rhinos and, I think, frozen black rhino sperm to do IVF implanted in the white rhino carriers. How does retrieving white rhino eggs fit into this plan?
 
AmbikaFan said:
This isn't the plan I thought they were pursuing. Even when Nola was alive and on an episode of The Zoo, it was explained that they intended to initially do IVF on southern whites with southern white eggs and sperm, and if they carried successfully, they would use eggs recreated through DNA of the last remaining black rhinos and, I think, frozen black rhino sperm to do IVF implanted in the white rhino carriers. How does retrieving white rhino eggs fit into this plan?
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I think you meant northern white instead of the black! Right now what is in the quote is even more technically challenging in genetic engineering then in 2 closely related taxa in the same genus!
 
AmbikaFan said:
This isn't the plan I thought they were pursuing. Even when Nola was alive and on an episode of The Zoo, it was explained that they intended to initially do IVF on southern whites with southern white eggs and sperm, and if they carried successfully, they would use eggs recreated through DNA of the last remaining black rhinos and, I think, frozen black rhino sperm to do IVF implanted in the white rhino carriers. How does retrieving white rhino eggs fit into this plan?
Click to expand...

I believe the plan is to take southern white rhino eggs (the cell not the DNA) and use DNA from preserved northern white rhino material to basically clone a northern white rhino baby. It would still be IVF. I believe they are still pretty far off from actually getting a baby northern white rhino on the ground and this procedure may just be in preparation for future procedures leading towards that goal. I’m sure you miss typed but black rhinos are not a part of the plan at all.
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
I think you meant northern white instead of the black! Right now what is in the quote is even more technically challenging in genetic engineering then in 2 closely related taxa in the same genus!
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My memory..ugh. You have caught me with this slip twice now. :eek::eek::rolleyes::rolleyes:o_O But the SP did show the initial trials of southern carriers of IVF southern rhinos, saying that if certain females reliably produced calves from both the IVF and in pregnancy, then and only then would they start using the extremely valuable--and limited--genetic materials from northern whites to be carried in surrogate southern whites. I think EchoBeast's explanation of using the southern white egg but the northern white DNA is the procedure I first heard about in 2015 while at the SDSP.
 
Not anything news wise but a question I have. Does anyone know if J Gregory, a southern white rhino, is still able to breed even though he’s had no offspring. He’s 24 to 25 years old I believe
 
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