Scientists have managed to clone the first endangered American species: a black-footed ferret taken from the genes of an animal that died more than 30 years ago.
It’s about a ferret named Elizabeth Ann, an elusive predator who was born on December 10 and revealed Thursday. Although very nice, be careful: unlike her foster mother – a domesticated ferret who gave birth to her – the black-footed ferret has a wild heart.
“You may have quietly treated a black-footed ferret and the next day they’ll try to pull your finger off,” said Pete, the US Federal Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), a recovery coordinator for black-footed ferrets. Gober. “It keeps going.”
Elizabeth Ann was born and raised in an FWS Black Legged Ferret Breeding Center in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is a genetic copy of a specimen named Willa, who died in 1988 and whose remains were frozen in the early days of DNA technology.
Cloning also allows extinct species such as the passenger pigeon to reappear. So far, the technique holds great promise for helping endangered species, such as a Mongolian wild horse cloned last summer and born in central Texas.
“Biotechnology and genomic data can make a real difference to conservation efforts,” said Ben Novak, chief scientist at Revive & Restore, a biotechnology-focused conservation organization that coordinated ferret and equine clones.
Black-footed ferrets are a type of weasel easily recognizable by the dark markings on their eyes reminiscent of a thief’s mask. Charismatic and nocturnal, they feed exclusively on prairie dogs, living in the midst of these rodents’ huge colonies of burrows.
Even before cloning, black-footed ferrets were a conservation success. They were believed to be extinct – victims of habitat loss from ranchers’ shelling and poisoning of prairie dog colonies as they made grasslands less suitable for livestock – until a farm dog named Shep brought a dead one to Wyoming in 1981.
Scientists collected the remaining population for a captive breeding program that has released thousands of ferrets since the 1990s from dozens of locations in the western United States, Canada and Mexico.