# @natgeo on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CqQMZ32Negc
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/5103384-natgeo-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/47159da32b.jpg
- **Posted:** 2023-03-26T13:00:19.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** National Geographic (@NatGeo) — https://gondola.cc/NatGeo

## Caption

Photos by amivitale | I still remember the first time I met Sudan as he was being transported from Safari Park Dvůr Králové in the Czech Republic to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in northern Kenya in 2009. 

He and three other northern white rhinos were being relocated to Africa in a last-ditch effort to save their entire species, a move that was met with protests by local Czechia people who felt it was risky and didn't want the rhinos to go. On that winter’s day, Sudan was one of only eight northern white rhinos alive on the planet. 

He moved slowly, cautiously. He took time to sniff the snow. He was gentle, hulking, otherworldly. I knew I was in the presence of an ancient being, millions of years in the making (fossil records suggest that the lineage is more 50 million years old), whose kind had roamed around much of our world. A century ago there were hundreds of thousands of rhinos in Africa. 

Sudan died five years ago. He was 45 years old, elderly for a rhino. He is survived today only by his daughter and granddaughter, Najin and Fatu, who live at Ol Pejeta Conservancy. 

Remarkably, there is still hope for the northern white rhino. Today, a BioRescue consortium project has turned to an innovative mix of classic reproduction techniques and cutting-edge stem cell technology in the hope of resurrecting the subspecies. Today there are 24 northern white rhino embryos ready to be transferred into a surrogate southern white rhino mother.

I have just launched the new short film Remembering Sudan, documenting the heartbreaking crisis facing the northern white rhinos and those who sacrifice so much to protect them. Learn more at https://on.natgeo.com/3TK0E52 and by following amivitale, olpejeta, biorescue_project ,and vital.impacts. 

#Conservation #Kenya #StopPoaching #rhinos

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## Tags

rhinos, stoppoaching, conservation, kenya

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