Endangered rhino dies at California zoo, leaving 3 worldwide
Science
Endangered rhino dies at California zoo, leaving 3 worldwide
A northern white rhinoceros, one of just four left on Earth, died on Sunday at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park after suffering from a bacterial infection and age-related health issues, zoo officials said. Nola, a 41-year-old female who had been at the park since 1989, was euthanized after her health took a turn for the worse following a Nov. 13 surgical procedure to drain a large pelvic abscess identified as the infection source, the zoo said in a statement.
Through the years, millions of people learned about Nola and the plight of rhinos in the wild through visits to the Safari Park, numerous media stories and social media posts.
San Diego Zoo statement
Northern white rhinos were declared extinct in the wild in 2008 because of poaching for their horns, prized on the black market for their supposed medicinal properties in some cultures. Nola was the only member of her kind left in captivity in the Western Hemisphere. With her death, just three remain, all at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, zoo officials said. Nola was born in the wild in Sudan, and captured at about 2 years of age. Her death came weeks after six southern white rhinos, close cousins of northern whites, were brought to San Diego from South Africa in an effort to bring Nola’s kind back from the brink of extinction. Zoo researchers are working on developing northern white rhino embryos to be implanted in the six new arrivals, who will serve as surrogate mothers.
