Talking Rhinos with Award-winning Journalist Rachel Nuwer

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 You're listening to the Inside Nature Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Olson, digital producer

spk_0 for Nature. This February, we aired The Last Rhino, a film about the three remaining Northern

spk_0 White Rhino's, Sudan and elderly male, his daughter Fatu and his granddaughter, Najin.

spk_0 Together, they are the last living representatives of their kind. However, this dire situation hasn't

spk_0 deterred a group of scientists from trying to rescue the Northern White. Using tissue collected

spk_0 from Sudan and his family, as well as frozen tissue from deceased rhinos, they hope to build

spk_0 the population from the ground up. Award-winning journalist Rachel Newer wrote an in-depth article

spk_0 about Sudan and his family for Nature in 2016. Her article lays out Sudan's entire backstory,

spk_0 how he wound up at a zoo in the Czech Republic, and eventually at the Old Pigeature Reserve in Kenya.

spk_0 We caught up with Rachel to ask if she had any updates on Sudan or the plan to save the Northern

spk_0 White Rhino. We also hope to find out why this subspecies has fared so poorly compared to the

spk_0 closely related Black Rhino and Southern White Rhino. Rachel Newer, welcome to the Inside Nature

spk_0 Podcast. Thank you for joining us. I'm delighted to be here. So in the process of reporting this

spk_0 article for us, you actually went to Africa to Kenya. Correct. And visited Sudan. What was that

spk_0 experience like? So I really did not know Sudan's story when I met him at Old Pigeature Conservancy

spk_0 in Kenya. I was kind of waiting in this long line and there was a rhino standing there and then

spk_0 someone mentioned to me, oh you know that's the last Northern White Rhino male. I was like, what?

spk_0 Excuse me? Did I miss here you? But suddenly I was my turn to meet this rhino and he's just kind of

spk_0 munching away on his hay oblivious, but I didn't know whether to feel like very solemn in this moment

spk_0 or happy for this opportunity. It was a very conflicting emotional experience for me and I think

spk_0 for a lot of people who meet Sudan and the two females. Yeah. Did you actually like make contact?

spk_0 Did you touch him? I got to touch him. Yep. His skin is really rough. It's almost like tree bark

spk_0 and he kind of makes these noises and he has a handler who's with him 24-7 and kind of stands by

spk_0 his side and pat some and keeps them quiet, but he's a really chill animal. Yeah. In the last rhino film

spk_0 he looked very sedate. Just doing his thing. Yeah. You know looking a little bit broader. Maybe you

spk_0 could just talk about what the threats are to rhinos currently and as an extension of that, you know,

spk_0 how did Northern White Rhino's sort of end up in this position where there's only three individuals

spk_0 left in the world? For sure. So rhino horn especially has been wanted or coveted by people for

spk_0 thousands of years. Back in ancient China, impoverars used to carve rhino horn cups and the idea was

spk_0 the cups would make any poison liquid fizzle and they'd know not to drink it and so that doesn't

spk_0 really work, right? Well there's never been scientific trials conducted on it to see if rhino horn

spk_0 can detect poison. Right. Some people hypothesize that perhaps there's some kind of reaction that maybe

spk_0 originated this myth, but for now I can say, hmm, maybe not. Then in Yemen there's also a long

spk_0 tradition of rhino horns being used for dagger handles that men traditionally wear on their belts.

spk_0 This really all started to come to a head in the 60s and 70s when poaching intensified in Africa

spk_0 and Northern White Rhino's were hammered especially for the Yemeni dagger horn trade.

spk_0 Their numbers plummeted. Now today the threats to rhinos are a little bit different. The

spk_0 demand in Yemen has gone way down but the demand in China and Vietnam has gone up. Rhino horn

spk_0 are still desired as cups and ornaments in China and also Vietnam. They are traditionally used

spk_0 in traditional Chinese medicine as a cooling agent so if you're like a grandma you would give your

spk_0 grandchild some rhino horn if they have fever and in Vietnam especially there's also a new demand

spk_0 as rhino horn is sort of like a party drug. It's something you take after a night of drinking with

spk_0 your friends to supposedly ward off a hangover and also just to show off like how rich you are and

spk_0 powerful because you can font the law and get rhino horn. So it is actually against the law in

spk_0 these countries to have or sell rhino horn? Absolutely. Rhino horn has been banned in China since

spk_0 1993 I believe and Vietnam it's also absolutely illegal. Okay, but this is a tradition that goes

spk_0 back much longer than that. Yeah well the party drug part is something new. People think that actually

spk_0 some smart traders just made that up as like a marketing scam but for traditional medicine yes

spk_0 there's a really long history. However researchers have conduct controlled trials of rhino horn

spk_0 and like just like some aspirin and they found the aspirin is much more effective at breaking a

spk_0 fever. Yeah yeah so those clinical trials are important right? Indeed. So there's this pressure

spk_0 from poaching for these various medicinal purposes and trophies and daggers and whatever else

spk_0 so did this have an impact on the northern white rhino in particular? I mean obviously all rhino

spk_0 populations have felt it but why did the northern white rhino do you think ended up here? Well the

spk_0 northern white rhino had the unfortunate distinction of living in central Africa where even more

spk_0 than other parts of the continent there were a lot of really nasty civil wars and conflicts

spk_0 after nations began gaining independence in the 60s and through the 70s and 80s. So the northern

spk_0 white rhino's strongholds were Sudan and what is today the democratic republic of the Congo.

spk_0 So just you know the populations were hammered by war after war and studies have shown that war

spk_0 is a bad thing for conservation. Armies will fund themselves through trafficking of wildlife.

spk_0 People are hungry so they kill animals. Habitats are destroyed.

spk_0 And that's affected elephants too right? I mean I think there was an elephant census that

spk_0 over the last 10 years that the central African bush elephants had been decimated as well.

spk_0 Definitely I mean across the continent elephants have declined by 30% overall in seven years

spk_0 but yeah definitely in places where conflict has broken out. Yeah. They've especially been

spk_0 impacted. Yeah so that's affecting the northern white rhino more. Be just by virtue of where

spk_0 they're located. Exactly. So the first and second Congo wars really were sort of the last

spk_0 nail in the coffin for the subspecies unfortunately. Yeah as you outline in your article and as the

spk_0 last rhino film portrays there's this group of scientists that is trying to resuscitate the species

spk_0 we're taking you know these three individuals and trying to expand them out to a sustainable

spk_0 population. So could you just talk a little bit about the science behind that? I know it's pretty

spk_0 complicated some of it and maybe you could just walk us through it. For sure. Yeah so there are so

spk_0 many challenges to this idea of theirs but they are very determined to try because it's really

spk_0 the last hope for this subspecies. So there's sort of two lines of investigation here. One is

spk_0 extracting egg cells from Fatu and Najin and remember those are the last two living female

spk_0 northern white rhinos. Neither of them can actually carry a pregnancy to term. One of them has a

spk_0 messed up uterus and the other had an encounter with an overzealous southern white male rhino that

spk_0 messed up her ankles. So she wouldn't be able to carry that to term. So if scientists can extract

spk_0 those eggs and the eggs are healthy then they can use frozen sperm from already deceased male northern

spk_0 white rhinos that have been kept in deep freeze in Berlin and then fertilize the eggs

spk_0 implant them in a female southern white rhino and bring the baby to term. So you can see how complex

spk_0 this idea is. And the reason they would take that embryo and implant it in a southern white rhino

spk_0 that's because these two older females cannot carry that term. That's right. One of them has had

spk_0 some kind of horrible infection that left her uterus warped and the other like I mentioned she

spk_0 this problem with her tendons where she couldn't be mounted by a male and she could not carry that

spk_0 you know several hundred pound calf to term. And then you said there's a second plan. So what's

spk_0 there is this one is even crazier. This is like the stuff of science fiction but I love it. There

spk_0 is this breakthrough technology that came out a few years ago called induced pluripotent stem cells.

spk_0 Now it sounds like a big mouthful but it is something that won the Nobel Prize and basically it's

spk_0 taking a normal cell and you're coaxing it into becoming a stem cell which is more or less like

spk_0 a blank canvas for creating any kind of cell in the body. So if you can take a cell from a northern

spk_0 white rhino coax it into becoming an induced pluripotent stem cell and then turn it into a sperm

spk_0 and or egg cell. Wow. Unite those cells you will get a rhino embryo. Right. And so but this has

spk_0 never been tried right. I mean this or have they tried it with other species. So yeah there is signs

spk_0 that this could work. A Japanese researcher recently used this method to actually create baby mice.

spk_0 Oh wow. So he made the cells he put them in a female mouse and they came to term and the mice are

spk_0 fine. And researchers in California have also used this technique to create induced pluripotent

spk_0 stem cells from one of the female northern white rhinos. So we know we can at least

spk_0 apply this to a rhino. We know that it can lead to healthy animals. Yeah. Can all those things be

spk_0 put together and actually achieve a baby rhino? We have to wait and see. Yeah. So your article in the film

spk_0 which again we're sort of both completed in 2016 sort of left us with that question and I guess

spk_0 we're still waiting to answer that question. Yeah. I you know unfortunately science tends to move a

spk_0 little slow. There haven't been any like major developments as far as I know but I mean I think

spk_0 everybody's giving it their all. So hopefully there will be in not too long. Yeah. Hopefully.

spk_0 So we talked a little bit about elephants. China recently banned the sale of elephant ivory

spk_0 which is huge. Definitely. It's like the biggest best breakthrough you could hope for for

spk_0 shutting down the illegal ivory market. And actually I think it's surprising that that wasn't

spk_0 already the case. I mean that's that's crazy when you think about it but for sure. But it's

spk_0 encouraging. It's encouraging sign. So are there any encouraging signs when it comes to rhinos?

spk_0 Um well more and more countries are paying attention to this. More and more countries are taking

spk_0 it seriously. The US has made a bunch of really great progress on this issue here. They've made

spk_0 over 30 arrests in the last few years related to rhino horn trafficking. Now that the ivory issue

spk_0 has been taken care of in China a lot of experts are hoping that they now turn their attention

spk_0 to curbing the rhino horn trade there. In Vietnam meanwhile there's really great

spk_0 anti-demand campaigns to try to just change people's minds about using it. The results so far

spk_0 are mixed but it's also early days. The thing is the laws are already there. They just need to be

spk_0 enforced and taken seriously. And unfortunately Africa on the ground has not reflected in each

spk_0 changes in terms of poaching. South Africa just published its numbers of rhinos lost just last year

spk_0 which for I don't remember maybe the fourth or the fifth year in a row were more than a thousand.

spk_0 At this point there's more rhinos being killed than born. So it doesn't bode well for the species

spk_0 but we still have time to change that. And that's in your specifically talking about southern

spk_0 white rhinos. Yes and black rhinos. And black rhinos and do we know like roughly how many

spk_0 of those are left in a while? Yes so there are around 30,000 rhinos left on the planet and that

spk_0 is of all five species and including the northern white rhino. Most of them are white rhinos excuse me

spk_0 southern white rhinos and of course they're the ones just in terms of sheer numbers that are also

spk_0 getting nailed the hardest by poaching. And most of those rhinos probably the reason that they

spk_0 still exist is because they're either in some kind of reserve or private land or something like that.

spk_0 Absolutely. I mean the majority of the world's rhinos live in South Africa and almost all of them

spk_0 if not all are on in national parks and are privately owned by rhino owners who are incentivized to

spk_0 keep the species alive because they can bring tourists in or hunters and make money off of them.

spk_0 So there's a popular saying in southern Africa if it pays it stays. But whether you support hunting

spk_0 or not it has helped bring rhinos back from the brink. Yeah but that's sort of a yeah I don't know

spk_0 if you have a book coming out in September is that correct? That's right September 25th my book

spk_0 about the illegal wildlife trade is going to be released. And like what sort of species do you talk about?

spk_0 Um so it's really it's kind of an adventure narrative so it's definitely not a big depressing

spk_0 list of all these species that are going to be killed but um you can learn about Sudan for example

spk_0 the northern white rhino you can learn about elephants tigers and stranger things like

spk_0 penguins and earless monitor lizards. Ah yes and did you did you tell us the title?

spk_0 Yes excuse me the title is poached inside the dark world of wildlife trafficking.

spk_0 All right great we'll we'll look for that in September and thanks so much for coming on Rachel

spk_0 I really appreciate it. Thank you it was a pleasure. That was journalist Rachel Newer. We'll

spk_0 provide links to Rachel's article and the last rhino film in the show notes. You can stream the

spk_0 full episode on our website and PBS apps until March 21st. Finally if you enjoyed this episode don't

spk_0 forget to subscribe to the inside nature podcast on iTunes. Thanks for joining us and until next time

spk_0 I'm Eric Olson.

Talking Rhinos with Award-winning Journalist Rachel Nuwer

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