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A New Noah's Ark

By Ritu Upadhyay

Here's Bessie, waiting to give birth to the baby gaur.

Bessie may look like any regular cow living on a farm in Iowa, but she has some great expectations. The full-bellied Bessie is going to give birth any day, but she's not having a cow! She is carrying an Asian gaur (gow-ur), a type of wild ox that is endangered. If the birth is successful, the baby gaur, which has already been named Noah, will be the first clone of an endangered species.

Scientists from Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), a Massachusetts company in charge of the project, cloned the animal using genes taken from a cell of a male gaur. Genes contain the chemical instructions, or recipe, for each living thing.

A New Lease On Life?
After helplessly watching for years as species became extinct, scientists are hopeful that this method will provide a new way to preserve many of the world's fastest-disappearing species. Robert Lanza, vice president of ACT, says the new technique "presents exciting possibilities" that could rescue endangered species and maybe even bring back extinct ones.

Gaurs, most of which are found in India, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia, are closely related to cows.

If Bessie's gaur arrives safely, ACT plans to try to clone a Spanish bucardo, an extinct goatlike animal. The last surviving Spanish bucardo died last year after being hit by a falling tree. But cells containing bucardo genes that have been preserved by freezing could bring the species back to life.

Oliver Ryder, a scientist with the San Diego Zoo, is building an entire "frozen zoo." He collects cells from endangered species and freezes them. So far he has preserved cells from more than 5,400 different animals belonging to more than 400 species. He believes the collection may be a valuable tool to save some species.

A Triumph Or A Trick?
Some scientists question the use of methods like cloning to save animals. When a species disappears, it's usually because its habitat has been destroyed. Bringing back a few extinct or nearly extinct creatures may be an exciting trick, but it's not enough to save a species.

Still, most conservationists are cheering for Bessie and hoping her historic baby gaur arrives in good health. "The future will want to know about these species," says Ryder.

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