The Last Two: The Battle to Save the Northern White Rhinos

by Boštjan Videmšek, Matjaž Krivic (Photographer), Maja Prijatelj Videmšek

Meet Najin and Fatu—the last of the northern white rhinos—as well as the scientists, conservationists, and rangers who are fighting for the species’ survival. The last two remaining northern white rhinos, an already functionally extinct species, are kept behind three electrical fences and protected by a squad of rangers at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Their names are Najin and Fatu. Both are descended from the last male northern white rhino, Sudan. Najin is his daughter, while Fatu is his granddaughter. Along with Sudan and another male named Suni, they were transferred to Kenya in 2009, in the hope that returning them to their natural habitat might help them regain their zest for life and reproduction. Unfortunately, things didn’t go to plan. With the deaths of Sudan and Suni, the northern white rhinos’ destiny is now in the hands of their Kenyan caretakers and a team of scientists at the BioRescue international consortium, which is developing and using several different techniques to resurrect the species, including assisted reproduction and stem cell technologies. The plan is to insert northern white rhino embryos into southern white rhino surrogate mothers as soon as possible. There is a real chance the first “new” northern white rhino baby will be born in late 2023. Will science prevail, or is it too late? Journalists Boštjan Videmšek and Maja Prijatelj Videmšek explore this question by taking readers on a journey through the history of the northern white rhinos. They introduce the rangers, conservationists, and scientists fighting for the future of the northern white rhinos and dissect what led the species to the brink of extinction, from wars and climate change to poaching and the black market. The Last Two offers hope for the future of the environment and the fight to save the many species that call Earth home.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Animals

297 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2022

Reviews

[Urška · Rating 5 out of 5]

Še ena knjiga, ki bi jo morali prebrati čisto vsi. Izobraževanje in osveščanje sta rešitev za to, da spremenimo naš način razmišljanja in ... rešimo, kar se še rešiti da.
Časa nimamo več prav veliko.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 2 out of 5]

As of 2023, there are only 2 surviving northern white rhinos, both female, on the planet. Both Najin and Fatu live on a luxurious, if not heavily militarized, for profit nature reserve in Kenya where they are part of a race against time to use their genetic material to bioengineer more of their species before it’s too late.
It’s a fascinating story and one that in the hands of a good storyteller should be a compelling read.
Unfortunately, Bostjian and Maja Videmsek are not up to the task.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, I don’t know how much of this book was written originally in English or how much was translated from their native Slovenian, but it is full of awkward phrasing and florid sentences that are quite distracting such as:

“De Mori lives by Lake Garda. She couldn’t bear living in the city, so she prefers to keep making the hour-and-a-half commute to Padua. She usually brings her dog, Elliot, along. During her lectures, he wanders around the auditorium and relaxes the students like some social pedagogue of yore.”

I’m not sure how her dog is relevant, much less what a ‘social pedagogue of yore’ looks like, but ok.
If that was the worst of it I could perhaps be more forgiving, but the narrative is often interrupted with tangents that never resolve themselves, constant sniping at the San Diego Zoo (the authors repeatedly take shots at them being unhelpful and selfish in conservation efforts. Something that apparently stems from a passage where they register their shock that representatives of the zoo wanted a fee to speak with them for the book. It all seemed rather petty and unnecesary), diversions into subjects only tangentially related to rhino conservation (there is a whole chapter on poached elephants at a nearby nature reserve), and what I can only describe as fawning over the people involved in saving the rhinos.
The tangents such as:

“The rangers knew they would be very busy during the August 2022 presidential elections. Given the traditional friction between various ethnic groups, election season in Kenya is always a highly volatile time. In 2008, several parts of the country were swept in something very similar to a small war, sparked by allegations of electoral fraud.”

practically demands more exposition as to how it impacts the rhinos but it’s never referenced again.
But it’s the fawning and extended profiles of the people they interview that have little do with the subject of the book:

“Barbara, can you tell us what the word ethics means to you in twenty seconds?” we tried to catch her off balance, but de Mori accepted the challenge with gusto.”
In twenty seconds! What are they hoping to accomplish here? Why exactly are they trying to catch her off balance? That she passed their test “with gusto”…are we still talking about rhinos?

“Mike Lesil’s enormous respect for the animals is evident all the time. If one day he were to be trampled by a rogue elephant, he would see it as the most beautiful death imaginable. He would have nothing but understanding for the animal, he shared with a bitter laugh. He would simply give in, his only hope being that it was one of the animals he’d helped protect all his life.”
I get the desire to want to protect beautiful animals like elephants, but rhapsodizing about the joys being crushed by them just seems like a bizarre and not entirely healthy thing to do.

“Jan,” we asked him, “do you believe in God? After all, saving the northern whites seems a project so daunting it will be hard to pull off without the assistance of some higher, divine force.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Stejskal shook his head after a moment’s reflection. “I don’t want to say no, and I don’t want to say yes. I just don’t know. At the top of some mountain peak, during one of my highly reflective phases, I might even answer in the affirmative. I might tell you that I indeed felt connected to a kind of transcendence—though nothing like God in his classical form.”
All three of us simply nodded at each other. There was nothing to add and nothing left to ask.”
I honestly had no idea what was happening here. Why are they asking him this again? Are they implying that his work brings him closer to god? That he is a god?

This adoration of their subjects would be more understandable perhaps if there weren’t also frequent references to how much better animals are than humans.
We all of course joke about this from time to time, and of course mankind has done grievous harm to the planet, but paragraphs like:

“Are humans superior to the northern white rhinos? Our answer would be that what superiority we may possess has long been reduced to the sheer ingeniousness of our methods when it comes to slaughter. If a boundless aptitude for cruelty represents the pinnacle of the human intellect, the planet would have been much better settled by the “not-so-bright” northern white rhino.”

seem a bit overwrought. Human beings cause harm, but they are also capable of good, as evidenced by the people trying to save the rhinos. As such, I found this kind of relentless pessimism about humanity disheartening.
I went into this book hoping for more info on the rhinos in general and their plight but large portions of the book are filled with dense chapters on the specifics of egg harvesting, gene splicing, and the scientists. Beyond that, if you want to know how these scientists like to relax (one is fond of reading Marquez in his free time), or what celebrity they resemble (one apparently looks like Susan Sarandon we’re told) then this is the book for you. If you actually want to learn about rhinos and their story, not so much.

[Maša Blaznik · Rating 5 out of 5]

They say, "Out of sight, out of mind". So what, then, can be said about the literally last two northern white rhinos, the last two members of their species, living out their days in a nature reserve in Kenya? Maja Prijatelj Videmšek and Boštjan Videmšek's excellent book and Matjaž Krivic's breathtaking photographs bring Najin and Fatu in front of our eyes and into our hearts. And they will stay there! Even after you have read the book, you will not forget this story. A powerful yet subtle message, where the authors present the well-researched story and weave it into the wider social narrative. The efforts that are being made to save the species give us hope and make us cry at the same time. A story born out of human greed and indifference is now being saved by human cooperation and determination.
The Last Two gives a voice to beings whose voices would not otherwise have reached us, gives a voice to species that fell silent before we realised they were the last two, and gives motivation to all of us who agree that we must change and stop the careless destruction of nature and its beings.

[Timotej Turk Dermastia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Čeprav se imam za enega izmed "posvečenih" v poznavanju problematike nosorogov, sploh severnih belih, je knjiga neverjetno sveža in nova. Videmška se, podkrepljena z izjemnimi fotografijami Krivica, potipita v srž problem človeškega dojemanja biodiverzitete in izumiranja, največje katastrofe ki se dogaja zaradi nas. Knjiga ponuja dober uvid v etične vidike "oživljanja" vrst in konča z determinacijo da so tovrstni poskusi nujni! Berite in zahtevajte drugačen svet!

[Ajda Naklada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Na svetu obstaja 16.000 živalskih vrst, ki so tik pred izumrtjem. Od tega so najbrž redke tako zelo blizu izumrtju, kot so severni beli nosorogi. Na svetu namreč živita le še dve predstavnici vrste - Najin in Fatu, ki nosita težo preživetja svoje vrste. A zgolj posredno. Nobena od njiju ne more imeti mladičev, zato se cele trume znanstvenikov trudijo s pomočjo njunih spolnih celic in spolnih celic že pokojnih samcev ustvariti zarodke, ki bo jih morda lahko donosile južne bele nosoroginje. Kljub temu, da fizični ne bosta več mami, je nujno, da morebiten mladič odrašča ob njima. Vrste namreč n definira le genetika, ampak tudi (ali predvsem) vedenjski vzorci, ki se prenašajo prek vrste z roda v rod. To pa mladiču lahko ponudita le še Najin in Fatu.

Avtorja v knjigi opisujeta neverjeten trud in prizadevanje za ohranitev severnih belih nosorogov, a se ne ustavita le pri tem za marsikoga morda zelo nišnem problemu. Kot napišeta tudi sama, se marsikomu najbrž porodi vprašanje, zakaj je ena podvrsta nosoroga tako pomembna. Ali se izplača vanjo vlagati toliko denarja, časa? In v knjigi vsekakor dobimo odgovore na vsa ta vprašanja. Predvsem pa cel kup novih vprašanj, na katera si bomo morali kot človeštvo odgovoriti sami.

Nobena žival ni izumrla kar sama od sebe. Seveda so na nekatere vplivale spremembe na zemeljskem površju, kot npr. ledene dobe in podobno, večina pa je izumrla zaradi nas, ljudi. Bodisi zaradi podnebnih sprememb, krčenja njihovih naravnih habitatov, pa tudi lova, izkoriščanja in celo vojn. Severni beli nosorogi so funkcionalno izumrli zaradi vseh naštetih razlogov. Predvsem zaradi pobijanja le teh zaradi njihovih rogov, ki podobno, kot slonovina še vedno veljajo za substanco z izrednimi zdravilnimi močmi, katerih seveda nimajo nič več, kot naši nohti ali pa lasje.

Skozi knjigo spoznamo boj za ohranitev vrste, pa cel kup obrobnih zgodb, ozadja, zgodbe o borbi za ohranitev drugih živalskih vrst... Knjiga je vsekakor napisana zelo celostno in za nekoga, ki ga ta tematika zanima, je prava zakladnica informacij.

Knjiga zagotovo ni lahko branje, sem prepričana, da niti nihče ne pričakuje, da je, sem pa jo brala res precej dolgo, zaradi vseh okoliščin, ki so mi v aprilu vzele ogromno energije. Knjigo priporočam vsem, ki vas zanima ekologija, naravovarstvo, tudi geopolitika, Afrika na splošno, sistem živalskih vrtov, ohranjanje živalskih vrst in postopki, ki spadajo zraven... Skratka knjiga je polna informacij in je ena od tistih, ki jo imaš na domači polici in večkrat posežeš po njej.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knjiga, ki bi jo moral prebrati vsak!

In nato kaj spremeniti...

[Jamie Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

Northern White Rhinos are the most beautiful creatures and losing them like we are makes me feel helpless. I knew we were getting close to the end but I didn't realize we were down to two.
This book gave me hope, which I was not expecting.
It also broke my heart.
The people in this book are geniuses who are working with the local (human) population to make their conservation efforts work. I was pleased to see that setting up 80 kilometers of land to save rhinos cost less than a new library in my community.
You need to read this if you care at all about climate change. I thought the covid shutdowns would have shown us that we don't need to be going going going all the time and that we would relax and maybe stop polluting the earth, but I was dead wrong.
We need to be better.

Thank you for the ARC.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the face of it, it might seem like conservation's biggest stumbling blocks would be poaching, climate change, and habitat loss. But over and above these is humanity's seeming inability to set aside egos and other petty differences long enough to realize that efforts would be monumentally more effective if we collaborated instead of competed. The same people protesting the ethics of assisted reproduction for a species on the brink of extinction likely have not taken the time to question how their choices might be contributing to the need for said methods in the first place.

I wholeheartedly agree that now isn't a time to be thinking about recreating wooly mammoths or other species that disappeared more than millennium ago when there are species like the northern white rhino, Asian elephant, mountain gorilla, and almost every amphibian on the planet that need our help and refusal to give up the fight.

[Andrew Clement · Rating 5 out of 5]

As one of the editors of the English language edition of this book, I was privilege to follow the story Najin and Fatu, the last two surviving members of the species of the Norther White Rhino. Author, War correspondent and environmental reporter Bostjan Videmšek traverses the geography of the battle to save this species, from the 'two girls' themselves to their caretakers, conservationists, and the genetic scientists who may provide the key to bringing this species back from the very edge of extinction.
Instead of simply focusing on interviews with the main actors of this one topic the author does a wonderful and skillful job of weaving them together into a broader narrative about the destructive nature of humankind and how we should (re-)think our relationship with wildlife and the entire planet.

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows the work of several entities who are not only actively trying to save the northern white rhinos from extinction, but also conservation in general of many endangered species. All aspects are covered, from lab research and scientific advances, to climate change and habitat, to conservation and poachers. It really is a comprehensive picture of how not simple it is to accomplish this feat. It does also celebrate the advances in research, habitat and conservation that have been made to get one more step closer to the possibility of a northern white rhino being born. A book definitely worth reading if you have any interest in wildlife conservation and biodiversity.

[Katja Miklavčič · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Last Two is a very important “reality check” – of what is happening to certain species and consequences we, as living beings on the planet, are to face. However, the book is also about hope and as such it is a strong reminder that there are things and beings worth fighting for. The book is amazingly well written (certain parts read as a novel) and the photographs are astonishing.

[Corbin Hillam · Rating 3 out of 5]

So depressing to think about the extinction of the white rhinos.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5!

[Megan McGrath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. They were pretty hard on the San Diego zoo and if it’s true, shame on the zoo. Also they’d bring up interesting things and never expound on them. Frustrating.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sad and cautionary tale. Book read like National Geographic article.

[Linda Beck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great subject matter with so much potential but the juvenile writing style and lack of editing was really hard to get through.