Two more endangered ferrets are genetic clones of animals frozen in the 1980s – East Idaho News

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) Two more black-footed ferrets have been cloned based on genes used in the first U.S. clone of the endangered species, bringing the number of cunning predators genetically identical to the last such animals found in the U.S. Reached three.

Efforts to create the first clone, a female named Elizabeth Ann born in 2021, failed, but more recently two more have been born, named Noreen and Antonia ), coupled with captive breeding programs launched in the 1980s, are increasing hopes for human cloning. Genetic diversity can improve a species’ ability to adapt and survive in the face of disease outbreaks and changing environmental conditions.

Energetic and curious, the black-footed ferret is a nocturnal weasel whose black eye markings resemble a bandit’s mask. Their prey is prairie dogs, rodents that ferrets usually hunt in the vast burrow complexes on the plains.

After nearly becoming extinct in the wild, black-footed ferrets have become a conservation success story, with thousands of them bred and reintroduced since the 1990s at dozens of sites in the western United States, Canada and Mexico. .

Because they only feed on prairie dogs, they have been victims of farmers and ranchers poisoning and shooting these soil-turning rodents, so much so that they were thought to be extinct until a man named Shep Ranch dog brings home a dead dog out west.

But their gene pool is small, and all known black-footed ferrets today are descended from these seven animals, so species diversification is crucial.

Noreen and Antonia, like Elizabeth Ann, are genetically identical to Willa, one of the original seven. According to Fish and Wildlife, Willa’s remains, which were frozen in the 1980s and housed in the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Cryozoo, could help conservation efforts because her genes contain more unique variations than those currently found in black animals. Approximately three times more unique variations were found in foot ferrets.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said in a report that Elizabeth Ann still lives at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center in Fort Collins, Colorado, but she is unable to breed due to a problem with her reproductive organs and not the result of cloning.

Biologists plan to try to breed Noreen and Antonia once they reach maturity later this year.

The ferrets were born last May at the Ferret Conservation Center. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Joe Szuszwalak said in an email that the Fish and Wildlife Service has waited nearly a year while ongoing scientific work, other black-footed ferret breeding efforts and the agency’s other priorities continue. It took a year for these births to be announced.

Suswarak writes that science takes time and doesn’t happen instantly.

Cloning creates new plants or animals by copying the genes of existing animals. To replicate the three ferrets, the Fish and Wildlife Service worked with zoos and conservation groups as well as Texas-based ViaGen Pets & Equine, which clones horses for $85,000 and clones for $50,000. Pet dog.

The company also cloned Przewalski’s horse, a wild horse from Mongolia.