US government is working with Texas-based anti-extinction company Colossal Biosciences to build a national repository of genetic material from endangered and threatened species. The effort comes amid the Trump administration’s moves to weaken protections for endangered species, including its recent decision to waive them in order to expand offshore oil and gas drilling.
Working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, scientists plan to collect cells, reproductive tissues and DNA from more than 2,300 species of plants and animals in the U.S. and around the world that are protected under the Endangered Species Act. The samples will be cryopreserved and stored at Colossal’s Dallas laboratory, and duplicate samples will be distributed nationwide.
The company, which last year claimed to have created live dire wolf pups, will genetically sequence the samples and share the data with researchers and conservationists. Under the partnership, the federal government will own the samples.
“We want to back up as many species samples as possible,” says Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm.
Colossal provides sample collection kits so that its partners in the field can collect samples of blood, skin and other tissues. Lamm says fundraising has already started.
“This collaboration combines the scientific expertise of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Administration and the ingenuity of the private sector to develop new tools that can help species recovery, protect critical genetic resources, and strengthen the future of wildlife conservation,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in a statement. (Fish and Wildlife, which is part of the Department of the Interior, did not respond to a request for more details about the partnership.)
Hypothetically, the samples could be used to save a species that is on the brink of extinction. Fish and Wildlife did this by cloning a black-footed ferret – one of the most endangered mammals in North America – using cryopreserved cells from a ferret that died in the 1980s. Announced in 2021, it was the first time an endangered species had been cloned in the US. The sample for this work was provided by the Frozen Zoo at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
Under Trump, Fish and Wildlife has proposed major changes to the landmark 1973 Endangered Species Act that could roll back protections for endangered plants and animals. The proposed changes would incorporate economic and national security considerations in determining protected habitats and eliminate the “general rule” that automatically gives endangered species the same strict protection as endangered species.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump convened the so-called The God Squad – a group of top administration officials that includes Burgum – to consider whether to skip protecting endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico. The group, which has met only a few times since the Endangered Species Act was created, decided to grant exemptions to companies extracting oil and gas in the region. (Environmentalists sued the administration over the decision.)
Noah Greenwald, director of endangered species at the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based nonprofit, says the recent Colossal initiative is consistent with the administration’s stance on conservation, in part because it does not conflict with industry interests.
“This is not biodiversity conservation,” he says. “It’s like a last-chance decision. We will only need this genetic material if the administration fails to recover the endangered species.”
The Center for Biological Diversity was critical of the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act. Greenwald argues that conservation efforts should instead focus on protecting public lands such as national parks and wilderness areas to prevent species loss. Even if it is possible to bring back extinct or endangered species with the assist of technology, he believes that a habitat should be left in which these species can live.