By AFP - Agence France Presse
Two of a kind: Najin and Fatu, the last northern white rhinos
These days, Najin spends a lot of time alone because her rebellious daughter prefers to hang out with her best friend.
This may seem like a common complaint from parents, but Najin has a particularly strong argument: she and her daughter are the only members of their species left on Earth.
They are the last two northern white rhinos, which have been considered functionally extinct since Najin's father, Sudan, died in 2018.
Problems in the womb mean that neither can give birth, so scientists are trying in vitro fertilization to bring the northern white rhinos back from the brink.
Earlier this month, AFP found the two rhinos inside their heavily guarded enclosure at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.
- Najin, the lonely mother
Both Najin and her daughter were born in captivity in a Czech zoo before being transferred to Ol Pejeta in 2009.
Najin has bad knees due to the time she spent in captivity, and her horn falls forward.
She is also prone to bouts of flatulence.
At the age of 35, she is only expected to live another five to ten years.
“I'm getting a bit worried,” admitted head caretaker Zacharia Mutai, who spends 12 hours with the rhinos most days.
“They have different personalities, just like human beings,” he told AFP.
Najin is his “favorite” because she remains very calm, he said.
At one point, the curious rhino approached to inspect a camera tripod, causing AFP correspondents to run.
Najin also inspected a nearby car in the 700-acre enclosure.
The rhinos are under 24-hour protection, with a watchtower, armed guards, and sniffer dogs to deter poachers who have hunted the northern whites to the brink of extinction.
There has been no illegal hunting in Ol Pejeta for seven years, Mutai said. The only intruders in the enclosure now are antelopes that leap nimbly over the fence and a few stray warthogs.
But apart from Mutai, Najin seems to spend most of her time alone.
- Fatu, the moody teenager
Born in 2000, Fatu was much younger when she arrived at Ol Pejeta and has embraced the wildlife more than her mother.
She spends almost all her time with Tawu, a wild southern white rhino who was introduced to demonstrate life outside a zoo.
Southern white rhinos are a closely related subspecies that went extinct in the 1800s but now number more than 15,000.
They look similar - both are gray, not white - but the northern subspecies is smaller, with fluffier ears and slightly longer tails.
Fatu, who turns 25 in June, was initially quite friendly when she arrived at Ol Pejeta.
She became “a bit moody” and “behaves like a human teenager”, said Mutai.
Sometimes, Fatu tries to pick a fight with Najin, forcing the rangers to trim her horn so as not to hurt her mother.
She also has the fate of her species on her shoulders.
Fatu tried to mate once, but it turned out that there was a problem with her uterus.
Unlike Najin, she still has viable eggs that can be fertilized with the sperm of dead males.
Fatu needs to be fully sedated every time scientists collect her eggs.
This has happened more than 20 times, making her probably the most sedated rhino in history, but Fatu remains in perfect health, said Jan Stejskal, coordinator of the BioRescue project, which aims to save the northern white.
Scientists plan to start implanting the first northern white embryos into a female southern white rhinoceros surrogate this year.
If successful, this will give Fatu and Najin a new purpose: to show the baby how to be a northern white rhino so that this is not lost over time.
It's a “huge responsibility”, said Mutai, adding: “I think we'll succeed”.
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