Wild horses who are highly endangered have recently received some fresh blood.
Kurt, a clone whose DNA was cryogenically stored 40 years ago, is ready to provide his species' limited population with a much-needed dose of genetic variation.
How Important Is Genetic Diversity?
The stocky Przewalski's horse, sometimes referred to as the takhi, is a type of horse that is indigenous to central Asia. Przewalski's horses were formerly extinct in the wild, but because to conservation efforts, there are currently roughly 2,000 of them in zoos and rebuilt wild populations all over the world.
The fact that all of those horses are decedents of the same 12 wild-born horses, however, puts the species' future in peril and suggests that a lack of genetic variety may be the species' undoing.
A species' ability to create offspring with the qualities needed to survive in a changing environment is essential for its survival. This process is known as natural selection.
Lack of genetic variety raises the likelihood of inbreeding in addition to limiting a species' capacity to adapt to environmental change. As a result, undesirable features may spread among the population, lowering the species' prospects of long-term survival.
Kurt the Replicant Horse
The San Diego Zoo created the first ever frozen zoo (a location where scientists preserve animal genetic material that has been cryogenically frozen) in 1972, and 40 years ago it added the DNA of a male Przewalski's horse named Kuporovic to the collection.
The zoo collaborated with a wildlife conservation organization called Revive & Restore and a company that clones pets and horses called ViaGen Equine to create Kuporovic 2.0, a horse that is also a descendant of the original 12 Przewalski's horses.
The cloned horse, called Kurt after Kurt Benirschke, the creator of San Diego's frozen zoo, was born on August 6, 2020, via surrogate. The foal will eventually join a breeding herd and is said to be content and healthy.
The goal of the initiative, according to Revive & Restore, is for Kurt to successfully mate and add to the genetic variety of his species as well as the advancement of conservation innovation during the next five to ten years as he develops into the first cloned Przewalski's stallion in the world.
Cloning as a Weapon against extinction
Scientists are working to clone other extinct or critically endangered animals in addition to Przewalski's horse. The black-footed ferret, northern white rhinoceros, and even the long-extinct woolly mammoth are all targets of continuing conservation efforts.
Kurt may not be the last time that cloning is used to try to save Przewalski's horse from extinction.
Numerous Przewalski's horses' genetic material is stored in San Diego's frozen zoo, and now that scientists are aware that it is feasible to clone the animals, other clones might follow in Kurt's footsteps, providing the critically endangered species with more genetic diversity.
