SAN DIEGO - A new survey finds more than 17,000 species are at risk of extinction. A Frozen Zoo at the San Diego Wild Animal Park could help many of the species survive.
"It's a unique collection of DNA samples and living cells... that represent an amazing diversity of birds, reptiles, and mammals," says Oliver Ryder of the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research.
It's one of the largest collections of its kind with 8600 animal samples.
"It's possible to bring a species back from the brink of extinction," says Ryder.
By learning more about threatened animals like the California Condor, the conservation program has helped to increase their numbers. But with DNA samples, animals who no longer roam the planet could be brought back to life through cloning.
The Director says animals are cloned from cells taken from the Frozen Zoo, but the zoological society's primary mission is preventing the disappearance of existing species.
"In the future for endangered species those species for which we have that complete genome sequence info will be much less likely to go extinct because we'll have tools for learning more about them contributing to their conservation," says Ryder.
