A cloned endangered species has been born in what scientists say is a “groundbreaking achievement” that could save it from extinction.
The black-footed ferret, named Antonia, was created in 1988 from the genetic material and tissue of another ferret and successfully mated to produce a pair of offspring.
Antonia and the father, a male black-footed ferret named Urchin, are housed in it Smithsonian National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) in Front Royal, Virginia.
The mother had three kittens, but one died shortly afterwards, leaving a male and a female in good health who are reaching developmental milestones.
Paul Marinari, senior curator, said: ‘The successful breeding and subsequent birth of Antonia’s kits marks an important milestone in the conservation of endangered species.
“The many partners in the Black-footed Ferret Recovery Program continue their innovative and inspiring efforts to save this species and provide a model for other conservation programs around the world.”
Black-footed ferrets were listed as endangered in 1967, and in 1974 the last known population of wild ferrets disappeared until the 1980s, when a small population of 130 was found in Wyoming.
There are only about 400 black-footed ferrets in the wild and about 250 in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service breeding programs.
The male and female offspring are healthy and reaching developmental milestones
They were born to Antonio, who was cloned from frozen tissue samples collected from a black-footed ferret named Willa
Antonia was bred from frozen tissue samples collected from a black-footed ferret named Willa, which was injected into an egg of a domesticated ferret.
The process, called somatic cell cloning, removed DNA tissue from a donor cell and replaced the DNA already present in an egg cell.
From there, scientists implanted the altered egg into another black-footed ferret and when it is born, it is genetically identical to the donor DNA it came from.
Antonio was born in April, along with her sister Noreen, who was also a clone from Willa’s genetic tissue.
The two ferrets follow in the footsteps of Elizabeth Ann – the first successful clone from Willa’s DNA in 2021 – and although researchers hoped to breed her, all attempts were unsuccessful.
Elizabeth suffered from a problem with her reproductive organs that was not caused by being cloned.
Scientists had hoped that Noreen or Antonia would reproduce and are now excited about the groundbreaking achievement.
‘The successful reproduction of a cloned endangered species is a milestone in conservation genetic research, proving that cloning technology can not only help restore genetic diversity, but also enable future reproduction, opening new possibilities for species recovery NZCBI said.
Researchers are hopeful about the birth and say the kits could be the start of the black-footed ferret population’s revival
‘This represents an important step in securing the future of black-footed ferrets and overcoming the genetic challenges that have hampered recovery efforts.’
Barbara Durrant, the Frozen Zoo’s director of reproductive sciences, says an estimated one million species are on the brink of extinction, and this can only be corrected by scientific discoveries such as the cloning of Elizabeth, Noreen and Antonia.
‘If we were to disappear, many things would grow back. But some populations are so small, or don’t even exist except here, that they wouldn’t be able to regenerate without us,” Durrant told us. CBS News.
In recent years, scientists have cloned other animals, including the rhesus monkey named Retro, who was born in July 2020 – making it “the first living and healthy cloned rhesus monkey.”
It “is a major step forward from impossible to possible,” Falong Lu, a researcher at the State Key Laboratory of Molecular Developmental Biology, told CNN.
Earlier this year, China became the first country to successfully clone Tibetan goats using the same process scientists used to clone Dolly the Sheep in 1996.
The goats were cloned from males in an attempt to ‘restore and preserve’ their genetics from the ‘outstanding individuals’ of the species.