By Michael Booth
Lamar - Somewhere between the comforts of a plastic tote (click here) outfitted with clean, shredded paper and a bloody quarter of a prairie dog for snacks, and the yawning dark hole he was being tipped into as hawks circled above, North America’s rarest mammal had the genetic weight of the world on its furry shoulders.
Black-footed ferret No. 10,166 clung desperately to the inside of a black PVC tube. The tawny kit appeared reluctant to dive into a lonely prairie dog hole five hours’ drive from the breeding center near the Wyoming border and take on the responsibility of restoring a species thought extinct until 1981.
It chattered like a psychotic dolphin, alternately retreating and lunging at the heavy leather gloves of the handler. Elsewhere on the unplowed shortgrass prairies of sprawling May Ranch, 14 other kits were about to go down other holes....
By Alex Fox
Her name is Elizabeth Ann and she gives hope to the return of critically endangered species.
Scientists (click here) have successfully cloned a wild black-footed ferret that died more than 30 years ago, according to a statement from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The young clone, born December 10, 2020 and named Elizabeth Ann, is the first ever native endangered species to be cloned in the United States, reports Douglas Main for National Geographic.
Once thought to be globally extinct, black-footed ferrets are one of North America’s rarest land animals, clinging to the hem of existence through painstaking captive breeding and reintroduction programs. With her unique DNA, Elizabeth Ann has the potential to be a source of much-needed genetic diversity to the inbred reintroduced population, which currently hovers between 400 and 500 individuals and remains severely threatened by disease....
