First Clone Of Endangered Horse Born In Effort To Preserve Species

Sep 09, 2020

The San Diego Zoo has recently cloned an animal successfully for the first time — a Przewalski’s horse, named Kurt, that was born on August 6, 2020 at the Texas veterinary facility of ViaGen Equine collaborator, Timber Creek Veterinary.

Native to Mongolia and China, the Przewalski's horse belongs to a wild horse species which is critically endangered. Even though breeding efforts have been quite successful, the process is still too time-consuming. The successful birth of cloned Przewalski’s horse Kurt gives hope for other endangered species.

The thought of clones can be quite terrifying for some, but rest assured that they are not being created to replace us. They are being created to save some of the earth's most beloved endangered species.

Revive & Restore, a conservation group dedicated to using biotechnology to save species from around the world, announced that on August 6, scientists successfully cloned a Przewalski's horse in a veterinary facility. The DNA used to create this horse had been cryopreserved from a male Przewalski's horse of the San Diego Zoo in 1980. The Przewalski's horse is a critically endangered animal typically found roaming the grasslands of Mongolia.

As explained by Smithsonian Magazine, nearly over half of the world's horses are either bred in captivity or kept on farms, making it rare to find a true, wild horse. Przewalski's horses are distant relatives of the domestic horses found on our farms and diverged from the ancestral tree approximately 500,000 years ago.

The species had once gone extinct in the wild, however, thanks to the efforts of intensive breeding programs, the population of Przewalski's horses had begun to increase again. The species was reintroduced to their native habitats, China and Mongolia. A majority of these horses that still exist in the wild can be traced back to the twelve original horses bred by humans. However, breeding is still a lengthy process, and a quicker method is needed to save the species. 

The cloning of these horses will directly impact the population levels of the species and hopefully, stabilize the ecosystems within their environments. The cloned horse is expected to be integrated into an existing herd of Przewalski's horse soon for breeding.

The president of San Diego Zoo, Paul A. Baribault, claims that saving this species requires plenty of collaboration and hard work. The zoo currently contains the genetic information of various animals in a DNA biobank. The DNA can be accessed in situations such as this. The cloned Przewalski's horse was named Kurt, after Dr. Kurt Benirschke, the founder of the zoo's biobank. In the process of cloning the horse, the zoo partnered with Revive & Restore. They also needed a helping hand from a group that was experienced with cloning. This is where ViaGen Equine, a horse and pet cloning company came in. 

The successful birth of a cloned Przewalski's horse gives hope for other endangered species in the world. This would allow humans to work more efficiently to save such species, especially since this process requires less time than breeding. This species is not the only one being targetted for conservation efforts. There are currently six species being looked into, including the woolly mammoth. While some of these goals may seem unrealistic or maybe even terrifying, cloning is a recent form of biotechnology. We still have not seen its full potential.

The International Islamic University in Malaysia has recently taken it upon themselves to attempt to revive one native species which has recently gone extinct. The Sumatran rhino is just one of the subspecies of rhinos that have gone extinct over the years, according to WWF.

What did you think about this story and what are your thoughts on cloning? Let us know in the comments and be sure to pass this article along to your friends and family to hear what they think!