The Return of the Black-Footed Ferret
By: Taylor Dunn
Using preserved cells from a long-dead animal, scientists have managed to successfully clone the rare Black-Footed Ferret in February, which could pave the way for more animal conservation in the future.
The black-footed ferret is a native North American animal and the only native ferret. This milestone is huge as it's the first native endangered species to have been cloned in the United States.
Meagan Sandhaas, a zoology major with an emphasis on endangered species, said it was exciting to see science making big strides in animal conservation, especially in saving the ones from extinction.
The black-footed ferret, like many endangered animals, once had vast numbers over the west side of America, but as prairie dogs were eliminated by farmers and ranchers, the black-footed ferrets dwindled as their primary prey was being snuffed out. Thought to be extinct by 1970, a ranch dog led scientists to a colony of the rare ferrets in Wyoming.
Those ferrets found were taken in by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Colorado where they underwent a breeding program that found the ferrets reintroduced to eight states in the American West. The success in the program paved the way for cloning the ferret, and the success of the cloned ferret can pave the way for more large-scale animal conservation efforts.
The cloning process began with taking eggs from a domestic ferret of a related species, in a way to avoid putting the rest of the endangered female black-footed ferrets at risk. Once the eggs were matured, scientists removed the nucleus and genetic material and combined it with the cells of Willa, a long-deceased black-footed ferret from the 1980s. This method of combining cells from a deceased subject and a close relative of the subject has been used in the past with the cloning of the sheep Dolly, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.
Born in Colorado, the cloned ferret, Elizabeth Ann is healthy so far, continually being monitored by the Ferret Conservation Center. Once she is old and healthy enough, she'll be released back into the wild to hopefully breed more of the rare species.
"Like other cloned animals reintroduced into the wild, {Elizabeth Ann} would be first reintroduced to an outdoor enclosure like the area she would be released to, in order to monitor her progress and make sure she'll be able to hunt and develop the skills necessary to survive on her own. Although she is a clone, she isn't much different than her predecessors," said Phil Ryder, a scientific officer who works with a pet service focused on cloning.
As this was not the first time an animal has been successfully cloned, it also won't be the last, especially from a long-dead subject. The extinct subject that was used for the black-footed ferret came from a place called the Frozen Zoo, where scientists and animal conservationists keep frozen embryos, DNA, and stem cells for future projects.
Today, all of the remaining black-footed ferrets are all siblings or first cousins. Now, with the introduction of Elizabeth Ann, this could infuse the future colonies with more genetic diversity and can help these animals reproduce more easily and even become more resilient to diseases.