Two more black-footed ferrets were cloned. First cloning of an endangered species The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday that the number of cunning predators genetically identical to one of the last animals discovered in the wild in the United States has risen to three.
Efforts to breed the first clone born in 2021, a female named Elizabeth Ann, were unsuccessful, but two more cloned females, Noeen and Antonia, were recently created with a captive breeding program that began in the 1980s. Hope is growing as you are born. We are diversifying endangered species. Genetic diversity can improve a species' ability to adapt and survive despite disease outbreaks and changing environmental conditions.
Kika Tough / AP
“The more diversity, the better. It allows us to be better prepared for changes, climate, etc.,” says Dr. Della Garelle, an FWS veterinarian who works with ferrets. To be broadcast on CBS 'Sunday Mornings' in 2023.
Energetic and curious, the black-footed ferret is a nocturnal ferret with black eye markings resembling a thief's mask. Their prey are prairie dogs, and ferrets often hunt rodents in the plains' vast den habitat.
The black-footed ferret is now a conservation success story. After being nearly extinct in the wild, thousands of them were bred in captivity and reintroduced to dozens of locations in the western United States, Canada and Mexico since the 1990s.
Because prairie dogs feed exclusively on prairie dogs, they have fallen victim to the efforts of farmers and ranchers to poison and sting the land-rattling rodents. So a ranch dog named Shep was thought to be extinct until he brought home a dead rodent from the West. Wyoming, 1981. Conservationists captured seven more and established a breeding program.
However, their gene pool is small. All black-footed ferrets known today are descended from these seven animals. Therefore, diversifying species is very important.
Like Elizabeth Ann, Noreen and Antonia are genetically identical to Willa, one of the original seven. Willa's remains, frozen in the 1980s and stored in the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance's frozen zoo, could help conservation efforts, according to Fish. That's because her genes contain roughly three times more unique mutations than are currently found in black-footed ferrets. Wildlife Services.
Frozen Zoo Has More Than 10,000 Samples of Everything From Skin to Feathers, CBS News Reported by Jonathan Vigliotti. last year.
“When I froze the northern white rhinoceros cells, there were 50 alive. Now only two are left.” Curator Marlys Houck spoke to Vigliotti.
Barbara Durrant, head of reproductive science at the Frozen Zoo, said their cell bank could help save about a million species from extinction, largely due to humans.
And in some cases, declines in species populations can only be corrected by science. “If we were gone, a lot of things would regrow,” Durrant said, “but some populations are so small or don’t even exist outside of here that they won’t be able to regenerate without us.”
Elizabeth Ann still lives at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center in Fort Collins, Colo., but is unable to reproduce due to reproductive system problems that are not due to cloning, Fish and Wildlife says. The Fish and Wildlife Service said. name.
Biologists plan to attempt to breed Noreen and Antonia after they reach maturity later this year.
Last May, a ferret was born at a ferret conservation center. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Joe Szuszwalak said in an email that the agency waited nearly a year to announce the birth due to ongoing scientific research, other black-footed ferret husbandry efforts and other priorities for the agency.
“Science takes time and does not happen instantly,” Szuszwalak wrote.
Cloning is creating a new plant or animal by copying the genes of an existing animal. To clone these three ferrets, the Fish and Wildlife Service partnered with zoos and conservation groups and ViaGen Pets & Equine, a Texas company that clones horses for $85,000 and dogs for $50,000.
The company also cloned the Przewalski's wild horse, a Mongolian species.