By Amanda Tuzi
A northern white rhinoceros, one of just four left on Earth, died Sunday at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park after suffering from age-related health symptoms and a bacterial infection.
The 41-year-old rhino, Nola, was brought to the San Diego Zoo in 1989, when she was two, to be apart of a breeding program. Nola underwent a surgical procedure to drain a large pelvic abscess on Nov. 13 and her health regressed over the weekend.
Nola was placed under consistent veterinary watch last week as her appetite and activity levels deteriorated. The zoo keepers made the decision to euthanize the roughly 1,800 kg rhino.
The northern white rhinos were affirmed extinct in the wild in 2008 because of poaching of their horns.
Nola was the only rhino of her species left in captivity in the Western Hemisphere. Now just three others remain all of them located at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.
Here are a few other critically extinct species: