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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

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Horns and body of Nola the rhino to be preserved at Smithsonian

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SAN DIEGO — The horns and body of Nola, the northern white rhino who died Sunday at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, are being sent to the Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington to assist researchers.

Nola’s death leaves only three northern white rhinos in the world — all in the Ol Pejeta Sanctuary in Kenya. At 41, Nola was in rapidly declining health; zookeepers Sunday opted to euthanize her.

Nola’s horns and body will be kept in the off-exhibit area at the Smithsonian with materials from other northern white rhinos in order to help researchers “continue to study this magnificent species,” the San Diego Zoo announced Tuesday.

In the minutes after Nola’s death, researchers at the zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research collected ovarian and uterine tissue samples for storage in the institute’s Frozen Zoo for study. The Frozen Zoo has genetic material from 11 other northern white rhinos.

But as expected, researchers found that her eggs were not viable and thus were not collected.

The Frozen Zoo has semen from male northern white rhinos but no eggs. No method exists for removing the eggs from a living northern white rhino.

Despite long odds, the zoo’s research institute, along with the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, the Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Medicine in Berlin, and the Ol Pejeta Sanctuary in Kenya — are determined to preserve the species.

Nola arrived at the Safari Park in 1989 from a zoo in what is now the Czech Republic and quickly became a favorite of zookeepers and visitors.

She did not succeed in giving birth — although at one time, the Safari Park had two male northern white rhinos.

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