Reverse Course: Cloning, tracking and rebuilding to save animals on the brink

11:42Peter O'Dowd:It can create real problems for the species. So we've been taking that cell line from one of those individuals, Willa, that had three times more genetic diversity. And now we're passing it on to even the next generation.

11:58Ryan Phelan:So this is stored DNA that made this possible, as you say, from an animal named Willa that died in 1988. What kind of foresight did it take to save the DNA before anyone knew if cloning was even possible?

12:13Peter O'Dowd:I would say a very prescient individual did this, and his name was Kurt Bernerska at the San Diego Zoo, who came up with this idea that we should be banking endangered species for scientific research for a future that none of us would even know how it would unfold. So this was before cloning was really happening. And that is why one of the things that we are working on is trying to cryopreserve endangered species now before we even lose more biodiversity, because we don't know what technology is going to be there 40 years from now.

12:50Ryan Phelan:Can these new babies ever return to the wild? Is that the plan for them?

12:54Peter O'Dowd:Yeah, the plan would be not for these very valuable individuals, but for their offspring. But for right now, they're extremely valuable and they're still part of a research program with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Smithsonian and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

13:12Ryan Phelan:We've been talking about cloning animals ever since Dolly the sheep was born in 1996. And all along, there has been a debate about unintended consequences of cloning. For instance, if we clone an animal to save it from extinction, will that make us less likely to stop doing the things that put them in danger in the first place?

13:33Peter O'Dowd:Well, that is often referred to as the moral hazard of doing something that will have this bad unintended consequence years to come. And I really don't believe anyone in their right mind could imagine it's easier to cryopreserve than it is to preserve what we have. It will never be easy to bring species back from literally extinction. What we want to be able to do is preserve what we have and to keep as much genetic diversity as we can.

14:02Ryan Phelan:But what kind of world would we bring some of these animals back to? For the black-footed ferret, for instance, I mean, their habitat, much of it was wiped out. Is it okay to bring an animal back if they can't thrive on their own?

14:15Peter O'Dowd:Well, I believe there is habitat, and there is increasingly habitat. As long as we can manage these populations and get them back into the wild, it bodes well for the future for many, many species. But we have to help them along the way. So, you know, it's not the only challenge for many of these species.

14:36Ryan Phelan:The black-footed ferret is really suffering because of disease as well, plague. Are you able to genetically modify the DNA of an animal like the black-footed ferret so that it's not as susceptible to plague?

14:51Peter O'Dowd:Yes, the answer is plague is an ever-present problem on the American prairie. It's carried by a native flea, but it is an invasive pathogen, and they are 100 % susceptible. So we are running two different research projects where we're looking at different regions of the genome that may provide greater resilience to the black-footed ferret. And another approach is to create the equivalent of a genetic vaccine that would be passed on through the germline. So both of them are early-stage research projects, but we're very committed to seeing where we can go with it.

15:31Ryan Phelan:Ryan Phelan is co-founder of Revive and Restore, an organization that tries to rescue endangered species with technologies like cloning. Ryan, thanks so much.

15:42Peter O'Dowd:Thank you, Peter. It's a delight.

15:49Chris Bentley:Genetic vaccines. How about that? Fascinating stuff. But as Ryan Phelan just said, those are early stage ideas. There's still a lot of need for good old-fashioned fieldwork. And after the break, we'll tag along with moose biologists trying to get a handle on what's killing young moose in Minnesota. Stick around.

16:20Peter O'Dowd:Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? a podcast from the Mehrotra Institute at Boston University. On the show, host Kurt Nickish asks the thorny questions necessary for this moment about the role business plays in society. Questions like, why are executives paid so much? Why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And of course, is business broken? Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts.

16:53Chris Bentley:Business leaders listen. Over half tune into podcasts daily. Reach them with CitySpace Productions, the creative studio from WBUR's business partnerships team. CitySpace Productions crafts custom podcasts for businesses that showcase expertise, deepen connections, and drive engagement. Turn your vision into a podcast. Visit wbur.org slash creative studio.

17:30Chris Bentley:Until a few weeks ago, I'd never seen a moose. Unless you live in the far northern reaches of this country, or in Canada, it's likely you haven't either. And in fact, even some places with lots of moose have been seeing less of them lately. The number of moose in Minnesota is about half what it was just 20 years ago. Conservationists have had some success stabilizing the population since it crashed in the 2000s. But these icons of the northern wilds are under pressure from the warming climate. To find out what might be done to help them, and to finally get a glimpse of a moose myself, I spent a few days in early February with a team of scientists studying young moose in the Northwoods.

18:21Peter O'Dowd:Okay, I got the time. Put the collar on.

18:25Chris Bentley:Two scientists huddle over a dozing moose calf in the frozen woods outside Ely, Minnesota. It's been sedated with a tranquilizer dart and rests in the snow of a forest clearing. Morgan Swingen does a quick physical exam on the moose, which weighs about 500 pounds at just nine months old, and slips a GPS tracking collar around its neck. All right, sweetie pie. Soon the calf rises and bounds through the snow to catch up with her mother. She'll wear that collar, hopefully for three years, says Swingen, a biologist with the 1854 Treaty Authority, an inter-tribal agency. If it were a bull moose, a male, Swingen says it would get a special collar.

19:09Peter O'Dowd:When they go through the ruts during breeding season, the hormones make their necks grow. And so the bull collars have expandable sections in them, So the collar has to be able to account for that.

19:22Chris Bentley:And they don't mind having the collars on them?

19:24Peter O'Dowd:I mean, I'm sure it's not their favorite thing, but they don't interfere with their life. You know, they go about doing their moosey stuff. So we've been collaring animals for a long time and we do our best.

19:41Chris Bentley:This work is so remote that it takes a helicopter ride to get back to base camp, where a team of biologists has tricked out an ice fishing trailer into a mobile laboratory. This is the base of operations for scientists with the state and two local tribes that want to answer a critical question. What's holding back the population of moose in Minnesota? To find out, they're putting those tracking collars on as many young moose as they can find with the help of a spotter plane that scans the wilderness with an infrared camera. Seth Moore is one of the scientists who follows the plane in a helicopter and hops out when they find a moose.

20:21Peter O'Dowd:Yeah, so today I think we're at about five or six degrees Fahrenheit. We're flying in a helicopter with no doors, absolutely none, you know, 60 miles an hour. So you have a wind chill that is absolutely brutally cold.

20:35Chris Bentley:It's worth it, he says, to get data on an understudied group of moose.

20:40Peter O'Dowd:We've never really looked at this life stage of the juveniles that have made it through their first growing season but haven't yet begun to reproduce.

20:52Chris Bentley:Inside their mobile lab, the team from the helicopter picks up more collars and drops off blood and hair samples from their latest encounter. So the blood is frozen? Blood appears to be frozen. Michelle Karstensen is with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. She says juvenile moose might be the key to growing the population.

21:15Peter O'Dowd:They're the next generation, right? So think of them now as like teenagers, you know, we're trying to get them to graduate, you know, get a job and be productive in society because they're the future of what this population can be. So for these animals that we're encountering now, are they going to make it through the winter? You know, are there stressors like our winter ticks or different parasites or wolves that are impacting their ability to survive? so we don't even get the chance to get that new group off to college and out of the parents' basement.

21:43Chris Bentley:By tracking which moose survived those teenage years, Karstensen and her colleagues are hoping to shed some light on three major killers of moose, parasites, predators, and climate change.

21:56Peter O'Dowd:Think of it as like wildlife CSI.

21:58Chris Bentley:Wildlife CSI.

22:00Peter O'Dowd:Yeah, and then if you figure out what are some of the drivers, what can we do about it?

22:03Chris Bentley:A centrifuge in the ice hut lab spins vials of moose blood as the helicopter team heads out with more collars. Let's check it out.

22:18Chris Bentley:For the last 15 years, a group called the Minnesota Moose Habitat Collaborative has been putting some of that science into action, trying to restore the kinds of forests and wetlands where moose thrive. Chris Dunham with the Nature Conservancy takes me on a snowmobile through an 18 ,000-acre preserve called Sand Lake Seven Beavers. It's a living experiment in rebuilding moose habitat. And there's evidence that it's working. In the snow, we spot a clump of moose hair and some fresh tracks, signs that an adult moose definitely came through here earlier today, says Dunham.

22:57Ryan Phelan:That's a rub there on that tree where the bull has rubbed his antlers. Nice.

23:04Chris Bentley:Yeah, scraped off all the bark. In 2021, a wildfire thinned out parts of this mature forest and made room for younger trees that are easier for moose to eat. And moose eat a lot. Sometimes more than 50 pounds a day of vegetation and woody plants. Little wonder the word moose comes from the Ojibwe for twig eater.

23:27Peter O'Dowd:And you can see all this vegetation that looks like these thin sticks poking up. A lot of that is aspen. And so that's young and it's vigorous and it's moose food.

23:40Chris Bentley:So that's just perfect. Moose also need the shade of taller trees in the warmer months, as well as wetlands. So Dunham says managing for moose habitat is good for the overall biodiversity of the forest. We hop off the snowmobiles and drink in the stillness of a winter forest Miles from any roads or other humans The only sound is a woodpecker One thing you won't find much of in these woods is deer That's another reason Dunham says this is prime moose habitat Deer carry two parasites, liver fluke and brain worm That can be fatal in moose and more deer means more wolves, which also prey on baby moose.

24:27Chris Bentley:Dunham says a stretch of hard winters here helped clear out the deer and provide an opening for moose, at least temporarily.

24:36Peter O'Dowd:It's great to have a place like this where we want to feature moose and help moose and we don't have a lot of deer. We kind of hope it stays that way. I love deer for like two weeks in November. Hunting season.

25:00Chris Bentley:Back at the field lab, Michelle Carstensen is keeping track of how many moose they've collared so far. This is the beginning of a multi-year study, so it'll be some time before the results are in. But climate change is making their research more urgent. Mild winters mean more parasites, especially winter ticks, which can infest moose by the tens of thousands. Hotter summers are also a problem.

25:27Peter O'Dowd:You know, we have a species that's living kind of at the southern edge of where moose exist in North America. And so they are the most vulnerable to that changes, even slight changes in the systems that stress them out even more. So they're supposed to do all their moosey stuff, find food, avoid winter ticks, run from the wolves, and oh, by the way, I'm hot. Then they can't take that big hide off that they're wearing, right? There's no place to just sort of unzip and take a layer off. Like, we all dress in layers of Minnesota so we can do that.

25:58Chris Bentley:Are the moose going to be okay?

25:59Peter O'Dowd:I wish I knew that, but we're here to try to fight for that, right? That's what we want to know.

26:05Chris Bentley:Karstensen says maybe the population will shift to the north over time. but it wouldn't have to shift very far to push moose out of Minnesota and off tribal territory. Biologist Seth Moore, who works for the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, hopes that day will never come.

26:23Peter O'Dowd:Well, it would be devastating. I mean, I've spent now 20 years trying to restore moose populations in Minnesota, and I feel like we're starting to see some progress. And, you know, this year we've seen a pretty high rate of calves that have made it through that first growing season. So to me it looks promising, but I do think we need to pay attention and keep our fingers on the pulse of these populations so that we can continue to manage to restore them.

26:52Chris Bentley:It's a story that Moore says won't be written in one lifetime. One of the principal philosophies in Ojibwa worldview is what is called seventh generation planning.

27:03Peter O'Dowd:based on this mindset that a person is touched by seven generations from a great-grandparent to a great-grandchild. And so we have this burden of responsibility to leave the earth so that our great-grandchildren can use it as we do now.

27:25Chris Bentley:He wants future generations of Minnesotans to share the Northwoods with moose.

27:38Chris Bentley:We've got one more story for you today about an elusive animal whose only known population in the wild is on a single mountaintop in southern Arizona. Peter O'Dowd takes us there in just a minute.

28:03Ryan Phelan:That is the territorial rattle of one of the most endangered animals in North America. Any guesses? It's the Mount Graham red squirrel. As the name suggests, there's only one place on the planet where they live in the wild. It's high atop an 11 ,000-foot peak in southern Arizona. And you are about to go there.

28:26Peter O'Dowd:We're all good.

28:27Ryan Phelan:Out of your room.

28:32All right.

28:33Ryan Phelan:Along with the state game and fish departments Holly Hicks and University of Arizona researcher Brett Pash. All right, here we go up the mountain. Mount Graham is known as a sky island. Across the southwest, mountains like this one erupt dramatically from the desert floor. Look out the car window at the lowest elevations and you'll see thorny mesquite trees and barrel cactus clinging to the slopes. But as we drive higher and higher, the terrain changes. First to scrub oak and juniper, then to ponderosa pine. It's 6 ,000 feet. A lot of the trees are an ominous shade of brown.

29:09Peter O'Dowd:So it might be short-term stress, but more likely all of those are dead.

29:16Ryan Phelan:Pash says the ponderosa are withering in warmer temperatures. But we keep going up, winding higher toward the sky, 7 ,000 feet, then 9 ,000, until the forest thickens with stands of Douglas fir. and streams swollen with melting snow cascade down the mountain.

29:48Ryan Phelan:And this is it, home of the Mount Graham Red Squirrel. I'm a little woozy from the change in elevation.

29:55Peter O'Dowd:It's definitely thinner up here.

29:58Ryan Phelan:Quite a bit different than where we started, isn't it?

30:01Peter O'Dowd:Absolutely.

30:03Ryan Phelan:Holly Hicks and Brett Pash come here to keep track of the squirrels that are still alive on this mountain. As of December, the state reported that just 232 remain. The Mount Graham red squirrel has been listed as endangered since 1987. Years of intense drought, insect outbreaks, it pushed the forest to the brink.

30:24Chris Bentley:You just get a firestorm of sorts that can really take out a good amount of habitat, critical for the squirrels.

30:34Ryan Phelan:The challenge, though, it seems to me, is that we are on this mountaintop, this island. You can't go down because it's desert. There's no pine trees down there. You can't go up. There's nowhere else to go. In a sense, the animals are trapped.

30:46Peter O'Dowd:Yeah, there's this idea called the escalator effect.

30:50Ryan Phelan:As climate warms, species will be increasingly pushed up to the top of the mountain and then eventually lost. That's why my goal is to find a red squirrel. So we trudge through patches of snow and mud.

31:09Chris Bentley:This is the sound of April.

31:11Ryan Phelan:In February, should be more crunch, less squish. until Pash points out a pile of shredded pine cones at the base of a tree. It's called a midden. Okay, so you can see this is a little bit deeper. Oh, yeah. More of a mound.

31:27Peter O'Dowd:Yep, more of a mound. This is a, I'm not going to touch that cone,

31:31Chris Bentley:but you can see there's a dug fur cone that's in there that's still closed. Yeah. So that represents a stored food source.

31:42Ryan Phelan:No doubt a squirrel has been here, chomping on the seeds inside the cones. The animals use these mittens to store their food in times of scarcity. It's like a refrigerator, but with higher temperatures... The refrigerators are kind of busted. ...making it more likely that stashed cones will dry out or spoil. And that's not the only problem. Look, there's the fire scar too, isn't it? Yeah, this whole area burned badly. Nine years ago, a wildfire tore through this drought-sick mountain. The charred remains of ruined trees still stand like used-up matchsticks. The Game and Fish Department's Holly Hicks says after the fire, nearly every red squirrel on Mount Graham died.

32:25Ryan Phelan:Only 35 survived.

32:26Peter O'Dowd:Apocalyptic is the right word. I mean, we're almost 10 years post-fire, and we still don't see much of any sort of tree regrowth. They're almost becoming just large meadows now. You know, the habitat is just making a turn. And for better or worse, it's not squirrel habitat any longer.

32:47Ryan Phelan:When you saw that the fire was here in prime territory, personally, what went through your mind?

32:54Peter O'Dowd:Oh, the worst case scenario. You know, you just picture you're losing everything. I mean, it's already an endangered species. and then you take away what it wants the most and what works best for it, and you expect the worst. But, yeah, I mean, it was a devastating moment for all of us.

33:14Ryan Phelan:Devastating wildfires, big wildfires are only getting more common, and the projections in the future are for them to get even worse. Do you think the burned-out territory that we can see right here will ever return to prime red squirrel habitat?

33:31Peter O'Dowd:Not in my lifetime.

33:33Ryan Phelan:The outlook may sound bleak, but the number of squirrels on this mountain has grown in recent years. Hicks says controlled burns have reduced the fuels available for future wildfires. Some trees are tagged with pheromone packets to keep the insects away. And far from the mountaintop, scientists like Tara Harris are trying to boost the population of squirrels even higher. Here you go. Harris is conservation director at the Phoenix Zoo.

34:01Peter O'Dowd:Here he comes. Please stand back. They will get very close.

34:09Ryan Phelan:Four Mount Graham squirrels live inside a cozy enclosure that's big enough for a person to walk through. It's cold in the room, and with all the pine trees stuffed in here, it smells like Christmas. A little fella scampers over to say hello. He's snacking on a nut.

34:27Ryan Phelan:I instinctively lower my voice to a whisper as if the extra decibels might startle him to death. He seems like a funny little friendly guy. He's right up next to us.

34:38Peter O'Dowd:Yeah, they're all quite friendly.

34:40Ryan Phelan:To give the squirrels a little space, we make our way outside past a bunch of kids. And Harris tells me that her team has been trying to breed the animals in captivity since 2014.

34:52Peter O'Dowd:And at the time, the biologists told us here that the females are receptive to males one day a year. Also, if you put them together at the wrong time, it could spell real trouble. It's possible they could even kill one another because they're extremely territorial in the wild. So, good luck.

35:14Ryan Phelan:Hope you get that window right.

35:15Peter O'Dowd:Yeah, so for years we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what that window was, that one day a year that the females are receptive.

35:26Ryan Phelan:And over time, Harris says she has learned quite a lot. For one, if there's enough food around, the squirrels aren't aggressive.

35:35Peter O'Dowd:They really, truly wanted to be together, like all the time. I mean, yes, they have little spats and they chase each other around, but they snuggle together in the nest box. All four of them sleep together when given the opportunity, and they groom each other like primates.

35:52Ryan Phelan:And have you had any babies yet?

35:53Peter O'Dowd:No.

35:54Ryan Phelan:After years of trying?

35:56Peter O'Dowd:We've been trying so long, and every year we try to change one small thing, and then they just keep throwing us for a loop.

36:10Ryan Phelan:As a last resort, University of Arizona researcher Brett Pasch tells me scientists have banked the squirrel's DNA in case one day they have to consider cloning. Watch your step here. It's pretty icy. Back at Mount Graham, we still haven't seen a squirrel in the wild. Pasch says we'll have a better chance if we get even closer to the peak. So, up we go.

36:40Ryan Phelan:Okay, up here at the top of the mountain, the snow is quite a bit deeper, knee deep in some places. I'm kind of popping through, trying not to fall almost 11 ,000 feet. It's hard to catch your breath too. Wait, you see a squirrel? Yep.

37:05Peter O'Dowd:See the dead tree? Yeah, yes. On the lowest branch, just sitting, looking out.

37:10Ryan Phelan:Oh, there he is. Oh. We've come a long way for you. We sit there for a moment in the silence of the forest, catching our breath, watching the young squirrel nibble on the cone of an Engelman spruce. Good spot. I've never been so excited to see a squirrel.

37:36Ryan Phelan:What's it like for you to come up here and see one of 232 squirrels? It's a privilege, you know.

37:45Peter O'Dowd:It's like a diamond, you know, precious jewel. It's our heritage.

37:57Ryan Phelan:Pash says this jewel is a sentinel for the health of the planet, not just on this peak in southern Arizona, but around the world. Give the forest a chance, he says, and the animals will figure it out.

38:21Chris Bentley:That's it for now. If you liked anything you heard today, click that follow button and keep up with Here and Now anytime, wherever you listen to podcasts. we've got new episodes every single weekday of the year our environmental series reverse course will be back again soon but in the meantime check out the archives by searching this podcast feed for reverse course or heading to hereandnow.org where you'll also find pictures of black-footed ferrits, moose and the Mount Graham red squirrel I know I'm an audio guy but trust me they're worth seeing Here and Now Anytime comes from NPR and WBUR Boston.

39:00Chris Bentley:Peter and I produced today's stories. They were edited by Kat Welch. Michael Scotto edited the podcast. Our stories were mixed by Andre Peralta. Additional technical direction from Caleb Green, Matt Rean, and James Trout. Our theme music is by Mike Moschetto, Max Liebman, and me, Chris Bentley. Our digital producers are Allison Hagen and Grace Griffin. And Here and Now's executive producer is Alan Price. Thanks for listening. Get out and enjoy the outdoors, if you're able, and thank an animal in your life. And we'll be back with you soon.

39:43Ryan Phelan:This message comes from Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get wise. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.