Zoo Collects Near-Extinct Animal DNA Just In Case Species Disappear
By Mikelle Leow, 26 May 2022
Photo 8474384 © Sergey Skleznev | Dreamstime.com
While scientists work to clone woolly mammoths, animal conservationists are scrambling a little closer to home and exploring alternatives to save existing but dying species. Nature’s SAFE (short for Saving Animals From Extinction), the largest biobank in the UK, has already extracted samples from 100 species to bring them back in the event they disappear for good.
Among the donors working with the animal tissue bank is Chester Zoo in England, which has contributed biological remains of endangered zoo animals that have passed on—including an Eastern black rhino, mountain chicken frog, jaguar, and Javan green magpie.
After their deaths, the animals’ ovaries, testicles, and ears were clipped off to be cryogenically frozen at the biobank, where they’ll be kept indefinitely in nutrient-rich vials.
Samples are stored at -196°C (-320.8°F), the temperature at which natural chemical activity in cells stop. Liquid nitrogen is used to freeze and preserve them.
As the BBC reports, skin cells are ideal for this sort of preservation as they can easily be thawed to body temperature to multiply in a dish. They’re also packed with healing and repair properties.
The hope is that scientists in the far future will acquire the knowledge to bring lost species back by defrosting the specimens. Using the preserved tissue, experts could one day clone extinct animals or replicate their sperm and eggs to respawn generations.
Although this method of saving animals won’t sit well with many people, it serves as a last-ditch effort for when the dreaded time comes.
“The work of modern conservation zoos like ours has never been more important,” says Dr Sue Walker, head of science at Chester Zoo and co-founder of Nature’s SAFE in a press release. “Technologies, such as cryopreservation, offer us a new, critical piece of the conservation puzzle and helps us provide a safeguard for many of the world’s animals that, right now, we’re sadly on track to lose.”
[via Futurism and BBC, cover photo 8474384 © Sergey Skleznev | Dreamstime.com]