This Baby Black-Footed Ferret Clone From Colorado Is Hoping To Save Her Species – Colorado Public Radio

A small face poked its nose through the bars of a metal cage, curious about the two women whove entered the room at the National Black-Footed Ferret Conservation Center outside of Fort Collins.

Captive breeding manager Robyn Bortner opened the cage door.

This is mama, Bortner said. Normally if this was a black-footed ferret we could not do anything like were doing now, which is handling her. Its very different for us to work with ferrets that dont want to bite you.

The friendly, domestic ferret shes holding is a surrogate mom to the first cloned endangered species native to North America, which stayed hidden in the nest box.

To get the baby black-footed ferret out of hiding, U.S. Fish and Wildlife veterinarian Della Garelle used a small handling cage and placed her on the scale. She weighs in at 816 grams.

Very good weight for a female black-footed ferret, Bortner said. She has all the usual characteristics of her species which are the classic black feat, a black tip tail. And shes got her black mask.

Elizabeth Ann might look like all the other black-footed ferrets at the center, but she is unique. Shes the clone of a ferret who died in the 1980s.

Its pretty inspiring that people 30 years ago saved those tissues, in case this could happen someday. So dreams do come true, Garelle said.

The bigger dream is to get the black-footed ferret off the endangered species list, Garelle said. To help save this little mammal one of the most endangered animals in North America found in Colorado and several other states, scientists brought Elizabeth Ann into the world.

Biotechnology nonprofit Revive & Restore collaborated with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to bring this clone to life.

Elizabeth Ann stands to bring in this huge boost of diversity for the species, said Ben Novak, the nonprofits lead scientist. Today every black-footed ferret is related to each other, somewhere between a sibling and a first cousin.

The black-footed ferret was once thought to be extinct. In the early 1980s, a ranch dog in Wyoming dropped a carcass off on its owners porch. Biologists tracked down where it came from, and eventually captured the last group of wild black-footed ferrets. Only seven of those passed down their DNA.

Today, there are just 500 ferrets in the wild.

Elizabeth Ann was cloned from the tissue of a ferret named Willa. She actually has no living descendants, Novak said. By cloning her, Elizabeth Ann is actually a potential eighth founder for this population.

Habitat loss, disease and the decimation of prairie dog populations a black-footed ferrets primary source of food drove these animals close to extinction. Novak believes Elizabeth Ann embodies a paradigm shift for conservation efforts.

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This Baby Black-Footed Ferret Clone From Colorado Is Hoping To Save Her Species - Colorado Public Radio