The Denver Post

Two more ferrets are gene copies of critter frozen in 1980s

- By Mead Gruver

CHEYENNE» Two more black-footed ferrets have been cloned from the genes used for the first clone of an endangered species in the U.S ., bringing to three the number of slinky predators geneticall­y identical to one of the last such animals found in the wild, the U.S. Fish a nd Wildlife Service announced Wednesday.

Efforts to breed the first clone, a female named Elizabeth Ann born in 2021, have failed, but the recent births of two more cloned females, named Noreen and Anton ia, in combinatio­n with a captive breeding program launched in the 1980s, is boosting hopes of diversifyi­ng the endangered species.

Genetic diversity c an improve a species’ ability to adapt and survive despite disease outbreak sand changing environmen­tal conditions.

Energetic and curious, black-footed ferrets area nocturnal type of weasel with dark eye markings resembling a robber’s mask. Their prey is prairie dogs, and the ferrets hunt the rodents in often vast burrow colonies on the plains.

Black- footed ferrets a re now a conservati­on success story — after being all but wiped out in the wild, thousands of them have been bred in captivity and reintroduc­ed at dozens of sites in the western U.S ., Canada and Mexico since the 1990s.

Because they feed exclusivel­y on prairie dogs, they have been victims of farmer and rancher efforts to poison and shoot the land- churning rodents — so much so that they were thought to be extinct, until a ranch dog named Shep brought a dead one home in western Wyoming in 1981. Conservati­onists then managed to capture seven more and establish a breeding program.

But their gene pool is small—all known black footed ferrets today are descendant­s of those seven animals — so diversifyi­ng the species is critically important.

Noreen and Antonia, like Elizabeth Ann, are geneticall­y identical to Willa, one of the original seven. Willa’s remains — frozen back in the 1980s and kept at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Frozen Zoo — could help conservati­on efforts because her genes contain about three times more unique variations than are found among black- footed ferrets, a ccording t o the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Elizabeth Ann still lives at the National Black- footed Ferret Conservati­on Center near Fort Collins, but she has been unable to breed, because of a reproducti­ve organ issue that isn’t a result o f being cloned, the Fish a nd Wildlife Service said in a statement.

 ?? KIKA TUFF — PROVIDED BY REVIVE & RESTORE VIA AP ?? A cloned black- footed ferret named Noreen, is shown on Feb. 19 at the National Black- Footed Ferret Conservati­on Center in Carr.
KIKA TUFF — PROVIDED BY REVIVE & RESTORE VIA AP A cloned black- footed ferret named Noreen, is shown on Feb. 19 at the National Black- Footed Ferret Conservati­on Center in Carr.

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