Elizabeth Ann, the black-footed ferret, is the first US endangered species to be cloned. She was born last year on December 10, but the same was only announced on February 18.
According to National Geography, scientists successfully cloned a black-ferret named Willa that died over 30 years ago. Her cells have been cryopreserved at San Diego Zoo Global's Frozen Zoo. They hope to breed Elizabeth Ann to other black-footed ferrets to inject the much-needed genetic diversity into their population.
The advanced cloning method is seen as an opportunity to conserve black-footed ferrets that were once found in the swathes of the American West. Their population dwindled as their primary prey, prairie dogs, were eliminated through farming. But in 1981, scientists found a colony of 18 on a property in Wyoming.
They became the basis for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's captive-breeding program and have been reintroduced to eight states in the Great Plains. However, only seven of them bred as all living ferrets are closely related. Today, there are about 400 to 500 of them.
The Process of Cloning Elizabeth Ann
The cloning process of Elizabeth Ann is essentially similar to Dolly the sheep's cloning process, although a little more complicated because of the transferring of genetic material from one species to another.
US News reported that Elizabeth Ann's cloning process started with taking the eggs from sedated domestic ferrets to avoid putting endangered black-footed ferrets in danger. Then the eggs were matured.
Shawn Walker, chief scientific officer with ViaGen Pets and Equine said that their scientists used pipettes to remove the nucleus and genetic material from the eggs. Then they added electric charge as an activation stimulus to each egg after transferring Willa's cells to get them to divide and create embryos that were implanted into a domestic ferret.
She was born on December 10, 2020. So far, her test results say that she is healthy. But scientists will continue to monitor her health. They hope to breed her to create diversity in the gene pool of black-footed ferrets.
"Biotechnology and genomic data can really make a difference on the ground with conservation efforts," said Ben Novak, the lead scientist of the biotechnology-focused conservation non-profit organization Revive & Restore.
Meet Elizabeth Ann. She’s the first-ever cloned black-footed ferret. This groundbreaking effort is one of the solutions @USFWS is exploring to help recover endangered species: https://t.co/30WSlhJVQk pic.twitter.com/ycg11awbpf
— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) February 19, 2021
No Negative Effects
The scientists are confident that there will be no negative effects from reintroducing the descendants of a cloned animal into the wild.
Just like what they did with the black-footed ferrets, Elizabeth Ann's descendants would be acclimated and observed in an outdoor enclosure before being introduced to the wild. The captive-bred ferrets in the enclosure must show that they can hunt prairie dogs and have other necessary skills to survive in the wild, according to National Geographic.
Elizabeth Ann is not the first endangered species to be cloned from a long-dead individual. Revive and Restore collaborated with the San Diego Zoo and Viagen in successfully cloning the endangered Przewalski's horse.
Science Times previously reported that the cloned horse would be moved to San Diego Safari Park to live with a herd of Przewalski's horse and eventually breed.
Check out more news and information on Cloning on Science Times.
