The World's last male northern white rhino is dying

Conservationists have reported that the health of the last male northern white rhino is rapidly deteriorating.

Few species on Earth are as critically endangered as these animals and now, with a mere three individuals remaining, the fate of the northern white rhino hangs in the balance.

Situated in Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy, this lone trio remains under armed guard at all times.

Now to make things even worse, the male of the group is suffering from serious health problems, bringing the species, which is already hanging on by a thread, one step closer to extinction.

According to reports from Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy, the rhino had recovered well from a leg infection he had developed last year but now another, deeper infection seems to have taken hold.

"We are very concerned about him - he's extremely old for a rhino and we do not want him to suffer unnecessarily," said a spokesman for the conservancy.

Not all is lost, however. Scientists are currently working on efforts to bring the species back from the brink by using southern white rhinos as surrogates to carry northern white rhino embryos.

If the method works, it could at least prevent the species from disappearing entirely. 

Northern white rhinos once roamed parts of Chad, Sudan, Uganda, Congo and Central African Republic, and there were more than 2,000 remaining as recently as 1960, according to Save the Rhino International, a London-based group.

The last northern white rhinos in the wild were observed more than a decade ago in Congo's Garamba National Park, whose animals have often been targeted by armed groups during conflict in the region. Efforts to safeguard the subspecies by moving a small number to Kenya failed.

There are roughly 20,000 southern white rhinos in Africa after efforts to save them from extinction began in the 1950s. Their numbers had fallen to fewer than 100 in the late 19th century because of uncontrolled hunting.

African rhinos remain under intense pressure from poachers who kill them to meet demand for their horns in illegal markets, primarily in Vietnam and China. There are about 5,000 critically endangered black rhinos.

In Asia, the greater one-horned rhino species has been recovering and has a population of several thousand. The Sumatran and Javan rhinos are in extreme peril, with fewer than 100 of each species remaining.