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World’s last male northern white rhino in ailing health

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The world’s last male northern white rhino, Sudan,lies in the shade on his bed of hay, occasionally lifting his head to show some interest in the world around him, his ears turning like little satellite dishes, picking up on surrounding noises.


Sudan, aged 45, shot to fame when his carers made him a profile on dating app Tinder last year in an effort to raise money for artificial insemination so that Sudan could procreate.


All attempts at producing a male heir have failed, due to Sudan’s low sperm count as well as the inability of his female mating partners to breed, leaving him in the lonely position of being the last of his kind.


Sudan was born in 1973 - likely in Sudan - but spent the first part of his life in a zoo in the former Czechoslovakia before being moved to Ol Pejeta sanctuary in Kenya.


“When he dies I will be very sad, but there is nothing we can do.Nature will do its work,” Jacob Anampiu, one of Sudan’s caretakers,told dpa on a recent visit to the sanctuary.


Sudan’s vet, Stephen Ngulu, said Sudan has lived unusually long for the rhino, but that age and arthritis were catching up with him.


“He spends most of his time sleeping and lying down. He has pressure sores all over his body,” Ngulu told dpa.


“He can walk a few metres to eat and drink,” Ngulu said. “He still has a good appetite.”


The two last female northern white rhinos in the world, Najin and Fatu, live at the same sanctuary, but in another enclosure. Aged 17and 28 they are Sudan’s daughter and granddaughter.


The northern white rhino is critically endangered, and soon to be extinct. They weigh up to 2,400 kilograms, the third largest African animal after the elephant and hippo.


A subspecies of the white rhino, they used to be found in a large slice of central Africa, but like all rhinos their numbers have been decimated by poaching for their horns.


The long-term aim is to develop assisted reproduction technologies that would produce a male northern white rhino offspring. That may involve using the other subspecies, the southern white rhino, as surrogate mothers.


On Tuesday, Sudan’s sanctuary tweeted that he was in slightly better spirits and that they were “cautiously optimistic.”


“It’s been raining heavily ... and the weather certainly seems to have lifted Sudan’s spirits. He has been able to wallow in the mud... something that he seems to savour,” the sanctuary said.


“The resilience that Sudan is showing in the face of adversity is truly remarkable,” they said, adding that he had “clearly not lost the will to live and is not going down without a fight.” — dpa


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