Rhino Conservation at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
International Union for Conservation of Nature status: Near Threatened (southern white); Vulnerable (greater one-horned); Critically Endangered (northern white, Javan, black, Sumatran)
Standing up to 6 feet tall, weighing up to 6,000 pounds, and thundering along at speeds up to 40 miles per hour, it's no wonder a group of rhinos is known as a “crash.” Big and mighty as they seem, rhinos in native habitats are threatened by illegal poaching and unsustainable habitat loss.
In addition to caring for southern white rhinos and greater one-horned rhinos at the San Diego Zoo, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and the Safari Park’s Nikita Kahn Rhino Rescue Center (RRC), which was expertly designed to provide top-level care for rhinos, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance is dedicated to protecting rhinos and their native ecosystems through our Savanna Conservation Hub.
Since 2015, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and our global partners have committed significant resources to supporting global populations of rhinos. These efforts have resulted in groundbreaking scientific advancements in assisted reproductive techniques, genomics, and advanced cellular technologies.
Some of our recent initiatives include:
- Species relocation: collaborating with our partners in Africa to relocate black and southern white rhinos to historic ranges and regions requiring ecological restoration.
- Community engagement: supporting local communities to ensure economic and ecological benefits from rhino reintroduction efforts and other conservation actions.
- Wildlife health: partnering on a new veterinary diagnostic laboratory in Kenya to enhance local capacities.
- Shared technology: sharing biological samples from the Frozen Zoo® to advance global genetic rescue research and developing a distributed network of biobanking capacity, including a biodiversity bank in Kenya.
- Genetic rescue: working with northern white rhino samples in our lab to advance techniques for genetic rescue, including optimizing protocols to grow and maintain stem cells and reproductive organoids, as well as primordial germ cell optimization.
- Species preservation: engaging global partners in strategies to reduce demand for wildlife products and other poaching threats.