Thanks to the unique project „Zoo in the Freezer“, an exceptionally rare chimpanzee has a chance to have offspring even after death.
More than a month after his death, the male chimpanzee Čego has a high chance of producing further offspring as part of a collaboration between the Safari Park, the Institute of Animal Science, and the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Significant advances in molecular biology and assisted reproduction technologies are enabling the breeding and conservation of species that were previously thought impossible to save. This applies not only to breeds of domesticated species but, most importantly, to wild species on the brink of extinction—such as the embryo transfer project for northern white rhinos (the last two living females in the world), coordinated by the Safari Park Dvůr Králové.
Some of these techniques were applied by the Safari Park Dvůr Králové along with the Institute of Animal Science, the Research Institute for Gene Pool Conservation, and the Institute of Experimental Medicine in Prague following the recent death of the endangered subspecies male chimpanzee Čego. Sperm and somatic cells were collected from the body of this genetically valuable animal and subsequently frozen in liquid nitrogen. The ability of the somatic cells to continue dividing was successfully verified. This makes it highly likely that even the deceased chimpanzee could have future offspring essential for maintaining the genetic diversity of the population—either by using the sperm for oocyte fertilization or by utilizing the nuclei of somatic cells in cloning technologies.