Newscasts - 'Poo Zoo' project aims to save at-risk species with animal dung
03/07/2025 10:18
Click the following link to watch video: https://share.newscasts.refinitiv.com/link?entryId=1_l6yrzdif&referenceId=tag:reuters.com,2025:newsml_RW689102072025RP1_991&pageId=Newscasts Source: 'Reuters - General news videos' Description: Britain's Chester Zoo, in collaboration with the University of Oxford and U.S. conservation group Revive and Restore, are collaborating on a project dubbed the "Poo Zoo" to protect endangered species by harvesting living cells from animal dung. Kristy Kilburn reports. Short Link: https://refini.tv/3ZZzkV5 Video Transcript: >> Britain's Chester Zoo is pioneering a new technique to protect endangered species by harvesting living cells from animal dung. >> It is a bit of a dirty business. >> Dubbed the Poo Zoo project, it aims to boost conservation breeding programs by providing a non invasive, cost effective way to collect genetic material from animals such as elephants, giraffes, and okopis. >> If we can get it to work, it opens up the possibilities of basically banking more genetic variation where we're trying to save these species. >> The Chester Zoo is collaborating with the University of Oxford and US Conservation Group Revive and Restore on the project. The head of Science at Chester Zoo, Sue Walker, explains how it works. >> And the idea behind Pozo is actually taking cells from fico material, banking them in what we call a living state, so they're still alive, and it could be used in 30, 40 years from now to save species. That's the gist of what we're trying to do. >> The process involves collecting fresh fecal samples and isolating viable cells by removing dietary remnants and bacteria. That's where Susannah Williams, a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford comes in. >> So it's been literally a case of optimizing on very basic principles of size of the cells, of size of bacteria, how big they are, how they move, how you can separate them, and how you can quantify them. We're working on setting up methods which we are reliable and robust for individual species, and all the species are different. >> One thing to sort out how fresh do samples have to be, in order to get viable cells. >> So we're literally collecting feces at time zero, and then just leaving it on a window cell for 12 hours. And then, can we still get cells? Leaving it for 24 hours. Can we still get cells? We can. Let's start pushing the boundaries. Let's see how long we can wait. Can we do something else? If we ship it in a bag, will there be anything when we get there at the other end? >> Once isolated, the cells could one day be cultured in a lab and transformed into sperm or egg cells, enhancing genetic diversity and breeding programs for at risk species. Here's walker again. >> The challenge you have is that technology doesn't completely exist for everything at the moment. It's actually been done in mice. That theory in terms of taking cells and turning them into sperm and eggs actually has been done, but it's definitely not been done from fecal material, but then in practice, in theory, it should all work. >> The teams hope the project could significantly advance global efforts to safeguard endangered species, offering a non invasive, scalable model for zoos and conservationists worldwide.