- Scientists are developing the world's first DNA and tissue
bank to preserve thousands of animals facing extinction, in an international
project called the Frozen Ark.
-
- Hundreds of species become extinct every week and thousands
more are expected to disappear over the next 30 years.
-
- They include 1,130 species (24 per cent) of mammals and
1,183 species (12 per cent) of birds, according to a report presented to
the United Nations Environmental Programme. Under the initiative, launched
yesterday, tissue from thousands of mammals, birds, insects and reptiles
will be frozen to ensure that genetic blueprints are secured, to be used
if the species die out.
-
- Priority is to be given to animals in danger within the
next five years and those already extinct in the wild. The first entrants
to the Frozen Ark will include the yellow seahorse, a small fish depleted
partly by trade in traditional Chinese medicine.
-
- Another is the British field cricket, whose population
by the early 1990s was reduced to a single colony of fewer than 100 in
West Sussex. Polynesian tree snails, first recorded on volcanic islands
of the Pacific during Cook's voyage of 1774, will also be included. The
introduction of a predatory snail wiped out half of the original 100 species.
-
- Without the Frozen Ark - an initiative between the Natural
History Museum, the Zoological Society of London and the Institute of Genetics
at Nottingham University - researchers say the world would be left with
only brief descriptions in scientific papers and specimens in museums.
-
- It will build a global list of DNA collections and future
biologists could find many more uses once its world-wide network of complementary
banks is up and running.
-
- Prof Phil Rainbow, the keeper of zoology at the National
History Museum, said: "Natural catastrophes apart, the current rate
of animal loss is the greatest in the history of the Earth and the fate
of species is desperate. For future biologists and conservationists and
for the animals they seek to protect this network will be of immeasurable
value."
-
- Scientists also admit the samples could be used to create
clones of extinct animals.
-
- Prof Alan Cooper, the director of the Henry Wellcome
Ancient Biomolecules Centre at Oxford University and a member of the Frozen
Ark steering committee, said: "I think it will be used for cloning
eventually.
-
- "We are cautious about cloning because it gets so
sexed up, but who knows what we will be using these specimens for in the
future?"
-
- Dr Anne McClaren, who chairs the committee, said the
primary motive was an ethical one. "I think Noah would have been proud
of this project."
-
- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
-
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=
- /news/2004/07/27/nark27.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/27/ixhome.html
|