There’s much more to the science of conservation than most wildlife-lovers ever realize. Preserving and restoring endangered species might rely on genetics, microbiology, coding and modeling, engineering, and countless other breakthroughs at the cutting edge of modern innovation. These stories bring us more than just HOPE — this science is an inspiring signal that the future of wildlife is held in the most innovative hands of researchers from all corners of the world.
Captive Breeding
Why are zoos, aquariums, and labs sometimes the key to saving critically endangered wildlife? In dire straits, creating healthy captive populations is the best course to save these species in the wild. Captive breeding allows these facilities to quicken the reproductive process and carefully preserve genetic diversity. And when successful, these breeding programs can set endangered species on a long-term path to recovery back in the wild.
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Wildlife Vaccines
Disease outbreaks can decimate wildlife populations. Increasingly, conservationists are turning to one solution that has proved revolutionary for human populations: vaccines. Vaccinating wildlife presents a unique set of hurdles, but conservationists are rising to the challenge. Scientists are adapting human vaccines to work for different species, developing new vaccines from scratch (like to combat white-nose syndrome in bats), and finding creative ways to get inoculations to species in the wild. Vaccinating endangered wildlife isn’t easy, but there are already incredible stories of success that have given hope to scientists around the globe fighting to preserve these species.
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Conservation Cloning
Can cloning help save species on the brink of extinction? It’s complicated. Cloning technology has come a long way since Dolly the sheep, and researchers have recently begun to explore cloning as a way to resurrect lost genetic diversity for endangered species. That’s made it a lifeline for the black-footed ferret, a species facing a serious genetic bottleneck. But this technology is most useful when there’s a reserve of frozen genetic material to pull from. And while it’s a valuable tool, it’s not a replacement for conserving healthy wild populations in their native ecosystems.
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Selective Breeding
We’ve been selectively breeding dogs, crops, and livestock for thousands of years — but to select for resilience in threatened wild species is a new arena. In the case of coral polyps, natural selection shows a promising future for corals able to withstand rising temperatures and resist coral bleaching. So can researchers kick this natural process into high gear fast enough to save coral reefs?
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Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is reshaping our world in countless ways — but what happens when we use it to protect the natural one? In India, where tigers prowl the outskirts of rural villages, scientists are training neural networks to help communities avoid conflict and protect their livestock. These systems of “traditional AI” aren’t resource-heavy — and they’re efficient, saving lives one alert at a time. In the fight to protect both wild predators and the people who live alongside them, this might be the wild card conservationists have been waiting for.
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Fighting Mosquito-Borne Disease
Scientists are fighting mosquito-borne diseases using a new microscopic ally: bacteria called Wolbachia. These “selfish bacteria” are harmless to humans but excellent at outcompeting disease-causing viruses like dengue, Zika, and yellow fever in mosquitoes’ guts. Countries around the world have been releasing Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes to stem disease outbreaks with remarkable success. Now, researchers in Hawaii are hoping to harness Wolbachia for conservation for the first time — in a race to save a unique group of birds from certain extinction.
