Northern white rhino dies at SD Zoo Safari Park, leaving five remaining in the world

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – A post-mortem examination on one of world’s last northern white rhinoceroses was conducted, but results weren’t immediately available, a San Diego Zoo spokeswoman said Monday.

Zoo officials said Angalifu, believed to 44 years old, may have died from old age on Sunday at the Safari Park, leaving just five members of the species left worldwide.

The zoo’s Christina Simmons said results from laboratory tests might “take some time.”

Another spokeswoman for the park, Darla Davis, said the prognosis for the species appears “very bleak.”

Zoo keepers unsuccessfully tried to get the Safari Park’s northern white rhinos to mate.

The only members of the species left are an elderly female at the Safari Park, three in Africa and one at a zoo in the Czech Republic.

The northern white rhino has been nearly wiped out by hunting and poaching for their horns, and by wars in Africa, according to the World Wildlife Foundation.