Hunt Talk Radio - Look for it on your favorite Podcast platform

ESA Ferret Dead 30 Years. Living Genetic Copy Created

Sytes

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 25, 2009
Messages
12,869
Location
Montana
"Elizabeth Ann was born and is being raised at a Fish and Wildlife Service black-footed ferret breeding facility in Fort Collins, Colorado. She’s a genetic copy of a ferret named Willa who died in 1988 and whose remains were frozen in the early days of DNA technology."

Ehhh, wow?


From here out, cryo frozen cataloged any living organism is on the cusp of replication.
 
Ehtics of cloning aside, I think this is cool and a hope for the BFF. I spent some time in Meeteetse and another ranch last summer that has BFF and learned from the bios and ranchers their endeavors to help this animal. There's a lot stacked against them and this might just help. Most ESA are not charismatic, but at least this one is fluffy.
 
Given there were only 18 individuals when the last surviving population was discovered (pre-Willa), I don’t see how this helps genetic diversity in the long run. These are still post-bottleneck genes.

These stories always give me mixed feelings. Yes, we have some cool technology that might be helpful under some circumstances. But I also feel like people view these technologies as some silver bullet that absolves us from the responsibility to conserve the species we have. “It’s ok if they go extinct now, we can just clone them later.” Extinction is still not a temporary condition, and being able to clone organisms does nothing to address the conditions that made them extinct in the first place.

If the only reason a species isn’t considered “extinct” is because a clone or two exist in a lab or zoo somewhere, what have we really achieved?

Just some early morning coffee-drinking pontification....
 
@wllm1313 T-rex thread might be real life.

 

Forum statistics

Threads
110,816
Messages
1,935,405
Members
34,888
Latest member
Jack the bear
Back
Top