Kenya plans to use IVF in bid to prevent white rhinos from becoming extinct

Kenya is planning to use IVF in a bid to increase population numbers of its iconic white rhino, and save it from extinction.

The country is home to the only two remaining female white rhinos on the planet.

The Kenya wildlife service is teaming up with bio rescue consortium to save the species.

Isaac Lekolool, Head of Veterinary and Capture Services at Kenya Wildlife Service, says, "the BioRescue consortium has developed quite advanced technologies in terms of reproduction and outside there in Europe they are doing what we call the stem cell assisted technologies and also in the country we are trying to use assisted reproductive technologies where we are doing in vitro fertilisation which try to go hand in hand in efforts to try and bring this species back to life."

The country plays an important role in supervising the health of the two rhinos for the IVF process.

Acording to Lekolool, helping to increase population numbers of the white rhino could protect other endangered species.

"If we get eventually to be able to get northern white rhinos being born from these kind of techniques either through the in vitro fertilization and also the embryo transfers so if we get the offsprings it will go a long way in showing us that we can be able to save different species in the wild not only in Kenya but the success in this will tell us that we are able to look into the future of other species that maybe facing a similar kind of threat," he explains.

Rhinos have a life expectancy of up to 40 years in the wild; with the two females aged 34 and 24, time is running out to prevent their extinction.