Original subtitles

Go to... Come on, girl. Here.

These are the last two northern white rhinos on Earth.

Their names are Najin and Fatu.

All right. Good girl.

She loves to be stroked behind the ears and under the belly also,

just like here.

We have had her for 15 years, so we are good friends.

Because

of

human failure, human greed, the result is just only the two we have.

She's 31 years old.

That's like about six years in human lifetime.

And her daughter, she's 20 years.

So they are mother and daughter, watching each other get older every day

new babies to teach and care for.

Hi, Fatou.

Hi, Fatou.

She's had some good mud baths, it looks like.

In the early 1900s, there were thousands of northern white rhinos roaming the

plains of Central Africa.

But due to poaching, that number was down to only 15 by the 1980s.

Today, there are only these last two females left.

I've been following this story for over 15 years, documenting a team called

BioRescue as they attempt a new scientific procedure to save the

rhino here on a protected preserve in Kenya.

You see the young 21 -year -old female and then the 32 -year -old female.

So there's a clear difference in body shape.

We have a clock ticking on us always with this project.

The last two northern white rhinos are getting old. They will not be here

forever. The males are already gone.

There's no natural breeding anymore.

The only chance would be via IVF.

IVF is a reproductive procedure where eggs and sperm are combined in a

laboratory.

The embryo is then implanted into the uterus of the mother to grow into a

But IVF in a rhino has never been done before.

The first step is collecting oocytes, or eggs, from the last living northern

white rhinos. That's what the scientists will attempt to do tomorrow.

She's beautiful.

Yeah. Beautiful lady.

And hopefully you will have a baby soon.

We are scientists doing a procedure which was never done before.

And if we fail, then the northern white rhino is gone.

And that is all on our shoulders.

My colleagues and I have poured our life into this project. So tomorrow is a

very big day.

The night before the ovum pickup is always quite challenging.

You have all these ideas what can go wrong. If we make a mistake, it can have

such consequences that there's an internal bleeding, there's an anesthesia

is too deep and the animal never wakes up again.

The first thing to do is to check how they're doing.

We don't want him to be nervous.

Zachariah, you can feel his stress.

He knows what the stakes are. This is like his baby.

I've looked after them for 11 years and they do recognize my voice.

This way.

One more. Okay.

Okay, wait. Wait, wait, wait.

Okay, let her go. Back.

Yeah, that's fine. That's fine.

Leave her.

Make sure that she's stuck with the horn in the corner. That's fine. Leave her

like this.

Cool, guys.

The anesthesia is a really important piece of it. This is what Frank does.

If he doesn't get the formula exactly right, these animals can die.

Two milligram DETO, 100 milligram ketamine.

Okay, we can go higher now.

These procedures can be incredibly risky.

I mean, can you imagine a 2 ,000 -pound animal with a horn waking up?

Oxygen is deep in?

Yeah. We had some accidents. I lost a disc in my backbone because working with

elephants. I broke my collarbone with a rhino.

So there's some risk, but we have to know that our patient is, It's

It's not a teddy bear.

But doing this procedure is for us the only chance.

Here we go.

This one,

small one. That's two actually. Have you seen that?

Next to each other.

Okay. Good.

Good for Likert.

Yep. Perfect.

Okay, guys.

Crossed one hour border time.

They're keeping close track of the time.

You know, they can't keep her under anesthesia for that long.

Okay, stop.

Okay.

Okay.

Very good.

Okay, let's go.

At the end, when we finish the harvest, the second phase happens, and we have to

find the O -side.

Searching for the eggs or oocytes takes place in a former shipping container,

which gets very hot.

And also it is very attractive for flies.

And you have to focus very strongly on a microscope.

You play with the light, and then suddenly you see this purple light

of a cell. And then you know that is what you want.

Is that a good one?

Yeah, it looks good.

That is the reason why we are here.

This is the beginning of new life.

Robert, 19 all -sides.

Best result ever.

19 oocytes means 19 potential chances to create new baby northern white rhinos.

The hard work paid off.

Thank you.

We never had such results before. Never. The best in any

rhino. We are extremely grateful.

Okay, now I have to pack again. Sorry, that is the second part. Otherwise we

miss our flight and lose our harvest.

Okay.

As soon as they're done, it's complete chaos.

They quickly get all their suitcases and then whiz to the airport.

It's a race against the clock to deliver the eggs to the lab in Italy and turn

those oocytes into viable embryos.

They have maximum 48 hours after collection when the oocyte needs to be

Otherwise, the project will fail.

documenting the story of the northern white rhino since 2009.

I have probably made 40 trips which I have largely self -funded

because this is one of the most important stories of our lifetime.

My goal is to reach as many people as possible and inspire them to care.

Hello!

Hello, Chloe!

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Wow. Thank you all for coming out. I am so excited to be back here.

Back in 2009, I met a rhinoceros named Sudan for the first time.

And quite unexpectedly, this gentle, hulking creature changed the

way I see the world.

I literally felt like I had just seen a unicorn.

I was so moved by...

By him and I couldn't believe that we, humanity, had reduced them to this.

The world's last male northern white rhino has died. A wildlife conservancy

Kenya says the 45 -year -old rhino named Sudan died from age -related

complications. Sudan was euthanized after its condition worsened

I cared for Sudan every day for almost 10 years.

He was so special because he knew he was so strong and so powerful.

But I think he also knew he needed our help.

I can still remember the last day we loved him, everything stands still.

It was just this realization that this is what we've done.

I only took two frames of that because I didn't want the sound of

my camera to disturb the sacredness of the moment.

And that picture, I never expected it to be so

symbolic.

I think people saw it and recognized it's our last chance.

It was actually Sudan's death that was a real spark.

Everybody began to understand there's no more time.

After the eggs are extracted, They have to be fertilized within 48 hours.

Cesare's laboratory is amazing.

There's this high -tech thing going on, but then right outside are all of these

cloned animals.

That's where you get this feeling like, oh, we're playing God here.

This technology means saving the northern white rhino just might be

The egg will be fertilized with sperm, which comes from two different bulls.

Both are passed away, one in 2015, one in 2014.

It's quite a challenging operation.

The sperm which is injected will develop into this new cell

and then new life starts to grow.

The miracle of life is something that is so fragile.

It can be destroyed so easily.

Rhinos survived for millions of years against drought, predators, and the

of nature.

But in just a few decades, humans nearly wiped them out.

Now every day that passes without a new baby on the ground is one day closer to

the northern white rhino being gone forever.

So there's always this clock ticking on us.

And our time is almost up.

This is how we imagine wildlife roaming the open plains of Africa.

That's not actually what it's like today for rhinos.

This is what it's like. They have to be guarded around the clock 24 -7 by

heavily militarized men because the value of their horn is worth more than

They are being poached to extinction.

And it's not just the northern white rhino. It was just announced that we

lost 73 % of the world's wildlife in the last 50 years. I just could not stop

thinking about this.

And I started researching and reading everything I could about this story. I

wanted to understand, what do we do?

Is there hope?

How do we stop this?

And I just started asking one simple question, which I could not find in any

the stories.

What do the people who live right next to the animals think?

Do they care about them?

And actually, it has led me down this amazing path of finding the most

extraordinary people that do care.

We can often forget that the best protectors are those people who are

alongside the animals.

They are the ones out there fighting that fight every single day.

My family lives in the northern part of Mara.

It can take me like 10 to 12 hours by bus.

It's quite different.

I do spend most of my time here.

This is Brenda, and this is Avon.

They are my two beautiful daughters.

My last time I've been with them is almost two months now.

Sometimes it's very hard, but sometimes we have to accept it.

It's more like having two families.

I have my immediate family at home, and my second family is a rhino.

And I have to care for all of them.

The weight is on our shoulders and the whole world is waiting for us.

There are only two animals on earth capable of providing the eggs needed to

northern white rhino embryos.

But even that is in jeopardy now.

issues in her reproductive tract for a long time.

Everything's done.

Everything's done.

She has benign tumors and

potentially malignant tumors that are in the uterus.

One of these tumors may even become malignant, so that's the risk we don't

to take.

The results of Nojin's recent health check show that sadly she is too sick to

provide any more eggs to the program.

So the number of new embryos we can make now rests solely on Fatu.

The extinction of this species is on a razor's edge.

Every day that passes is one day closer to losing the last northern white rhinos

on Earth.

I remember the first time I saw a rhino.

It was so exciting.

My father used to work here in Okpejeta as a fencer and I caught a visit when I

was very young and that's how I started building up being a conservationist.

I want these rhinos to be here for my daughters and for the next generation.

Only five rhino species remain on Earth.

Three are in Asia, and two are in Africa.

Losing any of these rhino species brings us one step closer to losing all rhinos

forever.

Unfortunately, neither of the last two surviving northern white rhinos are

healthy enough to carry their own pregnancy.

Saving the northern white rhino depends on scientists using closely related

southern white rhino females as surrogate mothers to carry the embryos

in the lab to a full -term pregnancy.

But none of this has ever been done before.

It's a scientific first.

The best time to implant a rhino embryo is at the peak of the surrogate female's

fertility cycle.

Mating behavior tells us when this is happening.

Right there are the two surrogates and the teaser bull.

The one by himself on the left is the male.

When the teaser bull starts mating, we know it's the right time through the

implantation of the embryos.

The teaser bull is a sterilized male, so it's still mate, but it can't make the

surrogate mothers pregnant.

I think one of the surrogates is ready. I can see the male is just following

them behind.

And this is a really good sign.

This tells us that it is the perfect time to implant the embryo.

So now my job is to call the team and tell them to get here as fast as they

We're in Amsterdam.

I am about to board the plane.

This has been the most stressful and also exciting 24 hours.

I got a call. I was in the middle of a talk in California, scrambled to get

here, and it is just so exciting.

We're at the enclosure now. We're driving up to the northern white rhinos.

right next door to them are the southern white rhinos.

The sun is coming up, and there's just so much anticipation.

Here we are.

Good morning, everyone.

We are extremely proud to be here today because it will be the first time that

an embryo from a rhinoceros will be implanted into a wild rhino. That is a

big step.

50 mg butofenol, which is 5 ml from this stuff.

We agreed in a quite intensive discussion that it would be more wise

to use a southern white rhino embryo first.

If the embryo transfer of our southern white rhino embryos is successful, then

we would continue with the northern white rhino embryos.

Everything of these steps are new ground.

And therefore it is so important to practice.

It's a little bit like sending a man to the moon.

because everyone knows that not all of these missions were successful.

Okay, let's go.

Okay, good luck.

Good luck. And please go to Freie Feld.

A little prayer?

Yeah, prayer. Now it's your turn.

I do it inside.

Yeah, I do it inside.

I have to work.

All right, let's go.

Be a doctor?

Yes.

And more here.

It's 36.

Turn on the ultrasound device.

Now it's very sensitive phase.

Give the ketamine, please.

I'm in.

Okay.

We are in with the needle.

Okay, now we have to concentrate.

100 milligram ketamine.

And now let's... implant the embryo.

An international team of scientists have successfully implanted an embryo into a

southern white rhino for the first time.

It's a historic international effort from teams all across the world, working

quickly to save a species before it's too late.

The procedure was carried out with southern white rhinos, which are closely

related to northern whites.

The surrogate in Kenya is healthy and 70 days into its pregnancy.

Now it is a waiting game.

to see if it's actually possible to grow a healthy baby rhino via IVF.

But on a personal level, putting so much time and energy into this project has

been especially difficult recently.

My wife is a cancer patient, and she had finished her first chemotherapy

in May last year.

Unfortunately, it very tragically turned out she had a relapse of her cancer and

it is not treatable anymore.

So she will die soon.

But we both agreed that this is important for both of us.

It's a mission we want to achieve together. So that is our agreement and

my dream.

I think all these wonderful people which are working with us, they have the same

mission. We have to provide the final proof.

When the first northern white rhino calf is born, I think I can relax a little

bit more and give the flag to someone else.

But first we have to achieve that.

Last time I was here, I had to race to the airport, fly to Kenya.

And they implanted that embryo into the southern white rhino surrogate.

But then something terrible happened.

Six weeks after the procedure, we got word that something was wrong at the

preserve.

Tragically, both rhinos died before anyone could help.

It took weeks before we really even understood what had happened.

El Nino, which is a climate phenomenon made by global warming, produced so much

rain here in Kenya that the surface of the soil was flushed away and 100 -year

-old carcasses, mummies, buried by the Maasai here, were released. And in these

mummies, there are the bacteria which can live up to 500 years.

And they released extremely powerful toxin. And this toxin killed our rhinos

one hour.

In this tragic moment came a ray of hope.

During the autopsy, they found this viable 70 -day -old male embryo

in her womb.

It was this heartbreaking moment.

But at the same time, this huge breakthrough.

Three and a half years working very hard, and that's really a milestone.

It's the first ever pregnancy caused by an embryo transfer in a rhino's horse.

In another world first, a southern white rhino became pregnant by IVF, but the

mother and the baby died from an infection.

Unfortunately, we lost it when it was 70 days.

This little baby provided us with a complete success story that everything

working and we could start immediately with another wet rhino embryos.

Now, next time we come with very precious cargo.

The pregnancy proved the process works.

But the loss of the surrogate and teaser bull was a big hit to the project.

It took months of work on the ground in Kenya to get the project back on track,

introducing a new southern white rhino surrogate,

and then capturing and sterilizing a new teaser bull.

Now we are finally ready to bring a new northern white rhino baby into the

world.

We begin by preparing the frozen embryos for the long trip to Kenya.

I have a number two. Can you write that? Two minus three, one.

Everything is very fragile. If they heat up, they are dead.

Okay.

Perfect.

A lot of pressure.

A lot of pressure on our shoulders.

Now the stakes are much higher using the precious northern white rhino embryos

for the first time ever.

It's easy for people who may not be close to these animals to think that

are habituated creatures.

They're not. These were wild rhinos that we are working with.

You realize so many things have to be...

perfectly in place for it to go right, and it doesn't take a lot for things to

go wrong.

There is Jomo, the sterilized male.

It's a really huge male.

Unutilizable Jomo.

He is not approachable like the other one.

And he is known for ramming vehicles.

So we have to do the darting this time by helicopter.

Julia is with you and help prepare the ketamine dart.

The plan is to dart the female so we can perform the embryo implantation

procedure.

And hopefully we can keep Jomo away without having to dart him.

He wants to be near the female, but it's too dangerous during the procedure.

So we are a little bit under time pressure. Our team is already in the

As soon as they dart the female, we have 30 minutes to thaw the frozen embryo

and get it implanted.

Okay,

just get as close as you can to the female.

The first dart only slows her down. It takes two darts to put her on the

The first dart is in, so we're just going for the second dart now.

Okay, got it. So first dart is in, and we start sewing the embryo. Thanks.

Second dart is in.

Jomo is running away now as well. We will clear.

He has left the area.

It's dawn, the bull is away, and now Frank is preparing the anesthesia.

Can we have some water here to clean the ear?

You okay?

You need help?

yeah wait push it a little bit over there to get the leg out okay guys one

three one two three one two three one two three get the leg out one two three

yeah good yeah have a look

wait

So we get a call and then we start our procedure here and joining them very

for the transfer.

This perfect little

embryo, which is barely visible with the eye, to thaw it in a safe way, it is

very...

Emryo delivery is coming.

These little tiny hundred micrometer big objects which we transfer into this

gigantic uterus with a very complicated procedure.

So we are aware that every step of that is so sensitive it can easily fail.

It's a very tense procedure for everyone involved.

Pregnant.

Yeah, Emery was in. She's pregnant.

Is she in? Yeah, yeah.

The emerald was released and this incredible moment we have all been

for so long has finally been achieved.

We placed it in an optimal position so we are quite hopeful that this first

attempt in a world ever has success.

Now it's on nature and praying and we will see what happens.

This moment, I haven't actually fully processed it yet.

Today, I am reminded that it takes these kinds of people reimagining a world

where we can save species literally from the brink of extinction.

Historic moment.

Always, rain is good.

I hope it's a good sign for the embryo.

It's sort of a blessing.

I'm dreaming that we will see many, many more of these beautiful northern white

rhinos alive on the earth once again.