"Hope is always the last thing to die," said Jana Mysliveckova, spokesman for the Dvur-Kralove Zoo, adding that it should be known "in the next 30 or 40 days" whether the insemination had been successful.

Eight northern white rhinoceros live in captivity in the world today -- six at Dvur-Kralove, in the centre of the Czech Republic, and two at the Wild Animal Park in San Diego, southern California.

Some 30 others were recorded in 2000 in the Garamba national park in the northeast part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where their fate is in question due to conflict in the region.

"According to the information we have, there are sadly no more northern white rhinoceros in the wild," Mysliveckova said.

The zoologists at Dvur Kralove have been encouraged by the experience of their colleagues in Budapest where a rhinoceros gave birth in January after artificial insemination.

Poaching is blamed for the near-extinction of the northern white rhinoceros, one of five surviving sub-species of rhinoceros, whose horn is coveted in traditional Asian medicine.

From 2,250 in the 1960s, their numbers fell to about a dozen in the early 1980s, before rising slightly thanks to measures taken under the CITES agreement on global trade in endangered species.