Back from the brink?

Resurrecting dinosaurs like in Jurassic Park may be a long ways off, but science may be close to saving the endangered Iberian lynx from extinction by animal surrogacy.

The lynx is a wild cat with populations estimated at less than 200 in the world. The Iberian lynx is currently the only wild cat listed on the endangered species list and populations have continued to decline despite breeding efforts.

Conservationists were trying to save the species the old fashioned way through a breeding program in Silves, Portugal, but the lynx had trouble giving birth and had two Caesarean sections in two pregnancies. They concluded that it was too dangerous for her to breed again, so they removed her ovaries, but saved embryos and ovarian pieces.

The goal is to implant fertilized eggs into a Eurasian lynx, a close relative of the Iberian lynch, and have it act as a surrogate. This has never been done before, but if even one survives it could be a major boon for the endangered animal population. The same thing was done to another Iberian lynx that was deemed too old to have any more children, but still had viable eggs.

It is still unknown how effective this process will be in breeding the endangered cats. There has been much talk about saving endangered species and engineering extinct species back to life by various means including cloning.

Recently, the National Geographic Society hosted a forum dedicated to this pursuit. Surrogacy for animals is not a new concept, but there have been few successes with implanting embryos in closely linked species. Scientists were able to bring an extinct Pyrenean Ibex back from extinction in 2003 using cloned tissue, but it lived only a few minutes.

There has been much debate over the ethics of reviving extinct animals for years. Surrogacy may become a less intrusive and controversial way of increasing endangered species populations.

Photo courtesy of true-wildlife.blogspot.com