The past two decades has proven successful for a secret institution that has gone quite underrated for its achievements in animal conservation.
The “Frozen Zoo” at San Diego has been able to potentially offer the one change for the northern white rhinos to survive. In fact, this institution has managed to give a second chance to other animals that were basically close to extinction as they could possibly be.
While the San Diego Zoo is quite popular for their polar bear and penguin exhibits, they have actually become lead conservationists for their cyrobank of cells of a number of endangered species from all around the globe.
In fact, all the stored genetic material in their frozen bank of cells has managed to bring about new life, such as the cloning of the alarmingly endangered and undomesticated Przewalski’s horse back in 2020, the Banteng, which is a species of cattle that was found in Southeast Asia back in 2003, a black-footed ferret back in 2020 as well, and an Indian Guar, which is a species of humpbacked wild ox in 2013.
Incredibly, the Frozen Zoo has already been around for 50 years, having started in 1972 by a biologist Kurt Benirschke. In a report from CNN, they shared that there was even a sign above the door to his laboratory that said, “you must collect things for reasons you don’t yet understand,” all in reference to skin cells that were stored at the zoo at -320°F.
According to some scientists, they believe that the biodiversity of life on the planet could possibly drop to around one million species by the next century. This is also why the efforts of institutions just like Frozen Zoo have become even more important. Moreover, CNN has also shared that they have begun saving eggs and sperm of animals such as cheetahs, despite not being considered endangered just yet, but are actually said to be at high risk.
So far, there is a total of 10,500 individual animals from at least 1,220 species. Among this number is the only frozen material that’s available from the male northern white rhinos, 12 of them exactly, from which scientists have managed to make stem cells. From this, they could be used to create sperm to fertilize an egg that would need to be carried by the closely related southern white rhino subspecies.
In addition, the all black-footed ferrets happen to be descended from seven individuals, which has resulted in the unique yet genetically difficult ways to recover their species. Cloning could possible help deal with these issues of genetic diversity and disease resilience among the wild populations. When there is a lack of the right amount of genetic diversity, the species tends to become more susceptible to diseases and other genetic abnormalities, while also having limited ability to adapt to the conditions in the wild, as well as a decreased fertility rate.
Meanwhile, Frozen Zoo is not the only organization that does cryobanks for endangered animals. There is also Nature’s Safe, which was founded by Tullis Matson, who collects cells of these same types precisely for the same purpose.
Unfortunately, cryobanking doesn’t get much funding, and most people working in these facilities don’t get much. But Matson explained in a report to CNN that while this is a challenge, they do get private donations, but he believes that the main challenge is really the inter-program coordination.
Matson shared, “The task is enormous, nobody can do this on their own. There’s a million species at risk. We need 50 different genetic samples from each, so that means 50 million samples; for each of those, we need five vials for each sample, so that’s hundreds of millions of samples that need to be stored.”
While cryobanking the cells of endangered species tends to have the qualities of a “bigger than you, bigger than me” kind of challenge, there hasn’t been a lack of talented individuals wanting to join in to help keep endangered species alive. That’s why if and when the conservation efforts to keep the white rhino around for generations to come, these facilities such as Frozen Zoo and Nature’s Safe should hopefully get the praise they truly deserve.
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True Activist / Report a typo
