Sperm bank technology could bring rare animals back from extinction

Beijing Zoo establishes animal "sperm bank," raising hopes of reviving rare animals

Beijing Zoo has established a sperm bank for dead animals. From now on, whenever a rare animal dies, veterinarians will notify the "sperm bank" at once to collect its sperm. The sperm bank has so far preserved the sperm of multiple species, including the giant panda, golden snub-nosed monkey, zebra, Siberian crane and black-necked crane. One tiger had died at such an advanced age that staff members had to give up on collecting its sperm.

A Beijing Morning Post reporter learned at the "Beijing Zoo Science and Technology Conference" that in 2014 Beijing Zoo established the "Beijing Key Laboratory of Captive Wildlife Technology," which mainly studies the welfare, nutrition, ecology, reproduction and disease prevention and control of rare captive wild animals. This year the laboratory established a sperm bank for rare wild animals, housing more than 10 liquid nitrogen tanks. Staff members explained that as soon as a wild animal dies, veterinarians immediately notify the laboratory to collect its sperm, which is placed in liquid nitrogen for preservation as a future seed resource bank.

It is reported that the animal kingdom's "sperm bank" is also called a "frozen zoo." That is to say, many of the world's endangered animals will become extinct after many years, and by then the seeds in the "frozen zoo" can be thawed and used for artificial insemination to bring endangered animals back from the dead and continue their species. Researchers also explained that wild populations of rare wild animals will become increasingly scarce, and genetic diversity will be lost; since sperm contains abundant genetic resources, frozen sperm can increase the genetic diversity of species in the future.

At present, Beijing Zoo has used frozen semen to artificially inseminate giant pandas. After giant pandas mate naturally, artificial insemination is also carried out immediately to ensure successful pregnancy. After panda cubs are born, paternity testing is required to determine who the father is. However, staff members explained that the frozen sperm currently comes from living giant pandas, and artificial insemination has not yet been carried out with the semen of dead animals. "But we will revive a batch of sperm after some time to test its vitality and the freezing technology." It is reported that because the sperm bank has just been established and is still at an exploratory stage, and because the mortality rate of the zoo's animals is not high, there is no room to be choosy, and basically the sperm of every animal that dies is preserved. Recently a tiger died, but unfortunately it was too old and its sperm had lost its vitality, so preserving its sperm was abandoned. (Reporter Cui Hong)