CNN Environment 
   
           CLOSE-UP SECOND NOAH'S ARK BEING BUILT IN A PETRI DISH
                                       
   
   
   September 28, 1995
   Web posted at: 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT)
   
   From Tech Correspondent Lori Waffenschmidt
   
   COLLEGE STATION, Texas (CNN) -- A modern-day Noah is building an ark.
   But this time it's not a boat. It's a breeding program to help save
   endangered species around the world. And the first animal on the list
   is the hunter's hartebeest, a tawny horned creature that's been called
   the most endangered animal of all.
   
   hartebeest The hunter's hartebeest is an African antelope that comes
   from Kenya near the border of Somalia. There's only one of the animals
   left in captivity, and none are known to be left in the wild.
   
   It's a major concern for researchers like Duane Kraemer at Texas A&M
   University. He's working to save the hunter's hartebeest and other
   animals too, through advanced breeding programs like Project Noah's
   Ark. "Project Noah's Ark is an international effort to raise the
   resources necessary to be able to bank the genomes of wildlife species
   to provide a safety net in the event they become endangered or
   extinct," Kraemer says.
   
   Foxworth Researchers say that it might be possible to breed more
   hartebeests from the one living at the Gladys Porter Zoo in
   Brownsville, Texas. Bill Foxworth (158K .aiff sound or 158K .wav
   sound), who is also working on the project at Texas A&M, says that
   they hope to remove eggs from the female and fertilize them with
   frozen sperm taken from male hartebeests in the past.
   
   "We hope to be able to produce embryos, transfer the embryos to a
   closely related species, and then have pregnancies from that," he
   says.
   
   It's an intricate process. Scientists collect sperm from animals, then
   a technician prepares a straw of sperm for freezing. The sperm will be
   stored in liquid nitrogen until it's time for fertilization. It's
   possible to store thousands of specimens in beer keg-sized tanks. Eggs
   are collected as well. When it's time for fertilization, the thawed
   sperm meets the egg. The resulting embryos go into an incubator to
   mature.
   
   fertilization After that, they're ready for in vitro fertilization, or
   the embryos can be frozen until they can be implanted in an
   appropriate host animal. The cryopreservation, or freezing process,
   creates a sort of frozen zoo. It could be the key to the future for
   many endangered species. A crucial step is finding out which animals
   can serve as surrogates for different endangered species.
   
   Once the techniques are perfected, Kraemer hopes to establish mobile
   satellite labs all around the world. In the meantime, time is running
   out for one lonely hunter's hartebeest, standing on the brink of
   extinction.