|
|
          |
FROZEN ZOO'S
Think of it as a biological insurance policy. A fantastic world where conservation and technology meet face to face with a vision for the future
Later, they became reserves where one could visit the last surviving examples of animal species on the verge of extinction. They were a sad catalogue, a Noah's Ark that offered a refuge from humankind's failure to protect the planet on which our survival depends.
Now many zoos pride themselves on excellent habitats for their animals, as well as their captive breeding programmes, which are having limited success.
Conservationists all over the world continue to fight the same battles: decimation of eco-systems, the eradication of species, lack of bio-diversity and the problems remain the same; cost and logistics. But what if the problem could be solved in new and radical ways, what if you could keep your zoo in a test-tube?
But what use is there for these tiny particles of animal tissue? Now, any species on the endangered list can be preserved by the harvesting of eggs and spermatozoa. At a later stage, preserved embryos can be implanted in the original parent, or another host parent of the same species, or even a parent of a different but similar species.
A very special birth took place at the Johannesburg Zoo earlier this year. They were very excited to announce the birth of a eland heifer. A procedure of artificial insemination carried out on a cow, where frozen sperm had been collected a year ago from a dead bull. As far as we know this is the first time in South Africa that this has been done, and perhaps the first time in the world.
Zoos all over the world are involved in the Genome Resource project, and Mr. Labuschagne of the Pretoria Zoo is the Vice President of the World Zoo Organization. He believes that if this procedure was in use 50-60 years ago, the quagga, the dodo and many other animals that have become extinct would be with us today. So the concept of the frozen zoo or cryopreservation, boils down to the fact that this is a process of storing biological material and when the time comes that habitats are available, these animals can be resurrected and re-established into the wild.
During the freezing process, the epididymis is separated from the testes and punctured to remove the sperm.
A sperm count is done to determine quality and the sperm is then mixed with glycerol as a protective coating during the freezing process. After an initial six hour resting period at four degrees, the sperm can be stored indefinitely in liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees Celsius.
The quality of the material is examined and banked. Together with the population biologists and wild life managers Dr. Paul and his team are able to make a decision on what species they want to build back into the wild. If it is not necessary to use the frozen material it can be thrown away, but if it was not collected in the first place - it would simply not be available.
The project is in its infancy. Its very nature means that it will take years for the worldwide network to grow and develop. But conservationists see the opportunities
It suddenly becomes apparent how these procedures could change conservation as we know it. Genetic material from South Africa could strengthen the bio-diversity of a cheetah community in a zoo in Berlin. A Venezuelan game park could receive a brand new lion, in a test-tube. And ultimately, we can scratch the word "Extinct" from our dictionaries forever.
Contacts
|
The first step on the road to such an institution was the zoo. Centuries ago, before travel was as quick and cheap as it is today, zoos were side-shows: freak carnivals where curious onlookers could gaze on the wonders of nature from exotic parts of the world.
Zoologists and Veterinarians all over the world have spent years developing an international Genome Resource bank: a facility that preserves genetic material from different species, in the form of sperm, ova or fertilised embryos. This material is cryogenically frozen and preserved.
Dr Paul Bartels heads up the Wildlife Breeding Research Centre, based in Pelindaba near Hartebeespoort Dam. The tireless work undertaken by Dr Bartels and his team forms the South African portion of the Worldwide Genome Resource Bank. He is involved in the collection of gametes, more specifically sperm. So it basically serves as a sperm bank. A third population is actually what is being frozen, you have the population in the wild, the population in the zoo, now you can have a frozen population of material that can be used re-birthed in the future.
The harvesting of genetic material is a hands-on procedure. While harvesting sometimes takes place from recently deceased animals, the WBRC has been involved in an ongoing project to preserve disease free buffalo embryos, in order to create more bio-diversity. A disease-free buffalo is worth about One Hundred Thousand Rand on the game hunting market, so "having buffalos in the bank" is a fairly worthwhile investment.
DR JOHN LEDGER - ENDANGERED WILDLIFE TRUST:
"The world is very concerned that we are losing our bio-diversity. That is why we have the International Convention on Biological Diversity. Many countries, including South Africa, have signed this convention, and signatories to that convention are required to look after their wild animals as well as take steps to prevent any extinctions. The edge we have in Africa is that we still have wild populations that are accessible to us. We have the techniques and the technology to collect a wild variety of material from the wild."
