CRYOPRESERVATION OR RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: YOU DECIDE

I suppose I shouldn’t broadcast my lack of creative thinking, but I have to admit that, until yesterday morning, I’d never given any thought to heritage animals. So I was a bit shocked to say the least when I read the article in the New York Times titled Rare Breeds, Frozen in Time. The article argues that modern livestock breeds have been weakened by human intervention. Heritage breeds, shaped by natural survival-of-the-fittest forces, tend to be stronger. Their embryos should be preserved and made available in case of food emergency.

The article goes on to say that, in order to preserve the heritage ‘misfits’, a combination farm and scientific facility has been established on the grounds of the SVF Foundation, a 45 acre complex in Newport, Rhode Island. SVF is the only organization in the country dedicated to conserving rare heritage livestock breeds by freezing their semen and embryos, a technique called cryopreservation.

On the estate, about 45,000 semen and embryo samples from 20 breeds of rare cattle, sheep and goats are preserved in liquid nitrogen chilled to minus 312 degrees. Each time the foundation freezes a batch of embryos from a new breed, it thaws a few and transplants them into surrogate mothers as a test. You can learn more about the technique by watching movie clips on the foundation’s website.

“Think of this as a safety valve program,” says Dr. George Saperstein, chairman of the Department of Environmental and Population Health at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. “If there was a disaster, if something like the potato famine of livestock ever hit, these frozen embryos would be made available, and in one generation we would be back in business.”

NO, HERITAGE TRAVELER!

Due to strict biosecurity protocols, SVF is not open to the public. But, according to the Times, you can visit the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia to learn more about the merits of rare farm animals. “We have to eat these animals to save them,” advocates assert. “Ultimately, food is the reason heritage breeds are important.”

NOW FOR A TOTALLY DIFFERENT APPROACH.

Let’s contrast cryopreservation with the ‘resource management’ approach used to preserve the wild ponies roaming the beaches, pine forest, and salt marsh of Assateague Island.

Assateague Island National Seashore, partly in Virginia and partly in Maryland, provides a natural habitat for over 300 wild ponies. Usually seen in groups of 5-10, legend says that the animals arrived on Assateague’s shores when a Spanish galleon ship with a cargo of horses sank offshore. A Spanish ship wreck discovered recently in the waters off Assateague lends credit to the theory.

Although resource management techniques are different in Maryland than in Virginia, the goal is the same: maintain a healthy population of wild ponies. In Maryland, some female horses annually undergo a contraceptive vaccine administered by a dart gun. this has proven to reduce high pregnancy rates with no harmful side effects. Wild horses in Virginia are part of the Annual Pony Swim started in 1924. Approximately 150 wild horses are rounded up on Assateague the last Wednesday in July. The horses swim across the Assateague Channel to Chincoteague Island where an auction takes place to reduce their numbers on Assateague. After many of the foals are sold, the remaining herd swims back to Assateague.

These  management techniques reduce the impact the horses pose to their natural environment and help provide a sustainable resource for future generations of ponies.

Now it’s your turn to sound off: CRYOPRESERVATION, RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, OR BOTH?

YOU DECIDE!

Send your comments and let us know what you think.

Post written by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe.

Photograph by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe.