Using Assisted Reproduction to Save the Cheetah [Slide Show]
Researchers at the Smithsonian National Zoo Center for Species Survival in Front Royal, VA, and the Cheetah Conservation Fund are developing ways to rebuild cheetah populations using artificial insemination and embryo transfers
![Using Assisted Reproduction to Save the Cheetah [Slide Show]](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/77E36BF0-4FDA-465F-9DB92E9E5D5DA276.jpg?w=590&h=393)
Using Assisted Reproduction to Save the Cheetah [Slide Show]
- SIBLING LOVE Laurie Marker, founder and executive director of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), poses with sibling cheetahs Tiger Lily (female) and Khayjay (male) in early 2015. The animals are originally from the Okakarara region of Namibia, but now live in CCF's cheetah sanctuary in Namibia... Credit: Cheetah Conservation Fund
- ROAR One of the five cubs born naturally to mother Amani at the National Zoo's Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in May 2011. The zoo is working to build captive cheetah populations via natural and assisted breeding programs as well as study the basic biology of this charismatic big cat... Credit: Mehgan Murphy, Smithsonian's National Zoo
- SEQUENCING THE CHEETAH GENOME Stephen O'Brien, chief scientific officer at Saint Petersburg State University's Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics in Russia; Anne Schmidt-Küntzel, assistant director for animal health and research at CCF; and Marker take a tissue sample from the cheetah Chewbaaka in order to sequence the species's genome... Credit: Cheetah Conservation Fund
- TIME FOR A CHECKUP Marker and wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin work on a cheetah named HiFi in CCF's veterinary clinic. HiFi was a wild cheetah that Marker had tracked near CCF for more than six years. Here, they change his satellite collar, collect blood, measure him and check his teeth and eyes... Credit: Cheetah Conservation Fund
- FROZEN CHEETAH EMBRYO The first blastocyst-stage embryo produced at CCF Namibia and frozen in their genome research bank, taken September 6, 2007. Embryos like this one could be transferred to younger cheetahs in order to build cheetah populations using assisted reproduction... Credit: Pierre Comizzoli/CCF/Smithsonian
