Abstract
We adults should urgently restore natural habitats of wildlife to remain beautiful creatures to next generation children. Zoos and aquariums should make a great effort simultaneously for the longer term contribution to global biodiversity conservation by international cooperation with other conservation organizations. To ensure the survival of endangered species and to maintain their captive population number with genetic diversity, it is essential that great efforts should be made to establish assisted reproductive technique and cryopreserve the cells such as germplasm. Five zoos and Hokkaido University have been developing co-research on assisted reproduction in the Amur tiger and Hokkaido brown bear. As part of the time capsule project for genes and cells of endangered wildlife, tissue samples of threatened species were taken and transported to NIES for cell culture and cryopreservation. Primordial germ cells (PGCs) have been collected and cryopreserved from the eggs of captive birds. We also study on production of interspecific germline chimeras by use of the PGCs transplant operation for the purpose to proliferate endangered bird individuals in the future. Assisted reproduction and cell preservation is not directly contributed to wildlife conservation. It can be more important to announce these scientific attempts intelligibly to the general public, and to give them the opportunity to know the current status of wildlife as a tool of environmental education. In this review, study on assisted reproduction and cryopreservation of the cells from endangered wildlife is introduced, and zoo potentiality for wildlife and global health conservation is described.
