JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Baby animals being born from cloned endangered species - it kind of sounds like something out of "Jurassic Park."
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Well, in this case, the story is real. For the first time in U.S. history, a cloned endangered species has produced offspring.
SUMMERS: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that Antonia, a cloned black-footed ferret, had given birth to three kits after mating with a male named Urchin. One baby died shortly after birth, but the other two, a girl and a boy named Sibert and Red Cloud, are healthy.
TINA JACKSON: This is a huge first. These kits that were born this year are born to one of only three cloned ferrets in the world.
SHAPIRO: That's Tina Jackson. She's the black-footed ferret recovery coordinator with Fish and Wildlife. She says the world needs more black-footed ferrets.
SUMMERS: Though they were once common in North America, there are now only about 370 out in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Habitat loss and disease have hurt the population.
JACKSON: We have a number of partners where we do reintroductions, working with different landowners and trying to get the ferrets that are produced in the captive program out into the wild, back out where they belong. At this point in time - still struggling with a few threats out there across the landscape, but this offers some additional hope.
SHAPIRO: Black-footed ferrets were thought to be extinct until 1981, when they were rediscovered in Wyoming. That discovery launched a conservation effort that ultimately led to Antonia and her kits.
SUMMERS: Though Antonia is not even 2 years old yet, her DNA comes from a ferret named Willa, who died in 1988. Willa's DNA is special, new to the current population of black-footed ferrets, the rest of whom are all descended from just seven other ferrets.
JACKSON: So Willa's genes coming into the program overall represents a potential increase in the genetics of the captive population of ferrets.
SHAPIRO: And now, with the arrival of Red Cloud and Sibert and the genetic diversity they represent, there's new hope for future generations of black-footed ferrets.
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