Israelis working to save endangered species through cloning

Among the acacia trees near Moshav Tsofar in the south, a single African wild ass (Equus Africanus), a rare species of wild African donkey that is almost extinct, wanders the desert. There are only a few dozen of the species left anywhere in the world.

Unfortunately, the Israeli specimen, which lives on a remote Arava antelope farm, will soon also no longer be alive. But the farm's manager, Yossi Ben, has a test tube with a white powder which could ensure the future of the species.

The powder is dried blood containing the DNA of the African wild ass from which new members of the dwindling species might be cloned in the future. In fact, Yossi Ben's ambitious program is itself called DNA, but in this case it is not a reference to nucleic acid which is the genetic basis of heredity, but "Dried Noah's Ark." Ben is promoting the program along with his colleague, Dr. Amir Arav, and which is dedicated to preserve the DNA of extinct wild animals so they can be cloned in the future.

Ben, director of the antelope park at Tsofar, hopes to turn his location into a true DNA repository which would be impervious to nuclear attack.

"We plan to have it remain there for 100 years, 200 years, whatever it takes until ... animals are extinct," said Arav. "If we want our grandchildren's grandchildren to see how an elephant looks, we will have to do this kind of cloning," he predicted, calculating that about 10 samples, eight females and two males, are required to bring back an entire species from extinction.

This project at Tsofar, an Israeli version of "Jurassic Park" for species on the verge of extinction, received dried leopard blood this month.

Up until about 20 years ago there were several dozen leopards in the Judean Desert and the Negev Hills. However, their numbers have dwindled greatly due to poisoning, collisions with vehicles and run-ins with residents of the kibbutzim in the Ein Gedi area, leaving only a few of the species left in the country. At the current pace, it appears the leopard will be extinct in Israel within the next several years.

The hope for the future of leopards in Israel therefore lies in the powder in a test tube at Tsofar. It was extracted by the staff of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority from a leopard captured two years ago in the Negev. The hope is to extract DNA from the leopard's white blood cells and clone additional leopards that can be returned to the wild.

"I extracted 80,000 cells," said Arav, a veterinarian and biomedical engineer. "Theoretically I can produce 80,000 leopards from that."

He said the hope is that leopard DNA would be implanted in the egg of a cat. The embryo would then be incubated in a test tube and implanted in the uterus of a leopard from a zoo.

Several years ago, Arav developed a new technique for the production of DNA samples that doesn't damage the genetic code and enables the samples to be kept in powder form for lengthy periods of time.

"Animals become extinct only for one reason, because of us," Arav said. "It is possible that one day we will wise up and decide not to destroy, but it could come too late for a great many species. This technology is a kind of insurance [policy]."