A call to defrost 'Frozen zoo' funding

The Animal Gene Storage and Resource Centre of Australia (AGSRCA), colloquially known as the Frozen Zoo, preserves the reproductive cells of animals in liquid nitrogen and can store them for many years before they are used for breeding, research and disease investigation.

The Centre’s focus at the time of its creation was to adapt advances in human and livestock assisted reproduction to help with the breeding and preservation of the genetic resources of threatened animal species. Today, it is part of the 16-member Frozen Ark Project, coordinated from the school of biology at the University of Nottingham in Britain.

The Centre acts like a bank. It is the custodian of the samples it accommodates, but they remain the property of the organisations or individuals that “deposit” them. There are no limitations on whether the samples need to be from native animals or not, and AGSRCA houses semen, embryos and DNA samples collected from rhinos, elephants, hairy-nosed wombats, bilbies and 100 other species.

AGSRCA Project director, Dr Ian Gunn said the Centre has a vital role to play in maintaining biodiversity.

“The world’s animal resources are rapidly declining. Globally, more than 5000 wildlife species are threatened with extinction. An animal gene bank is a guarantee that, in the face of a possible catastrophe – exotic disease outbreaks, fires, floods, wars, etc – it will be possible to save our animal resources," Dr Gunn said.

"Artificial reproduction techniques can address a number of critical problems encountered with small fragmented populations, such as high levels of inbreeding in captive situations.”

But the future of the Frozen Zoo is as uncertain as some of the species it aims to protect.

Dr Gunn says that the Centre, run by volunteers, has been in “hibernation” since 2009. Because funding has dried up and there are no longer staff to process deposits, the Zoo has been bypassed by donors as they’ve sought gene storage facilities over the last two year.

In the meantime, reminds Dr Gunn, Australia continues to lose its native species, with the Tasmanian Devil perhaps next in line if facilities like the Frozen Zoo remain unsupported.