What do poo and penises have in common with animal preservation efforts? Jacob Willis finds out.

Experts are using excrement as a tool in their fight against extinction. Image: Courtesy of Western Plains Zoo

“Poo’s great,” says Tamara Keeley. She would know. She deals with it every day.

“You can get a lot of information from poo, because poo represents everything that your body has been through and done. You’ve got stress hormones coming out, reproduction hormones coming out… all sorts of things. It’s a fantastic thing.”

A reproductive biologist specialising in endocrinology at Taronga Western Plains Zoo, Keeley uses poo, along with other animal excrements such as saliva and urine, as vital components in the process of breeding animals.

Keeley is able to gain a thorough insight into the present state of an animal’s body, allowing her to determine ideal breeding times.

“We can determine if and when she’s cycling, if she’s pregnant, and you can do it without even touching the animal. It can give them [the zoo] a head start in terms of making her comfortable, isolating her from other animals, making sure there’s no construction in that area. You want to make sure you get as much information as possible to increase your chances of getting viable young.”

She says one of the real positives of the technology is the amount of information you can obtain from the animals without disturbing them.

“Wildlife biologists have actually been using poo to determine hormone levels for about 20 years now. It started with domestics, where most of these technologies do, but it really took off with wildlife because it’s a very non invasive way of getting a lot of information from an endangered species.”

There are approximately 5000 endangered species in the world today. On average, one of those species will become extinct every year. But assistive reproductive technologies are playing an increasing role in preserving endangered species.

Australia is at the forefront of these technologies. Aside from Western Plains’ hormone analysis work, assistive reproductive technologies are present in many of our countries other wildlife facilities.

Taronga Zoo Sydney was home to it’s first ever elephant artificial insemination in August 2008, and the calf was born to mother, Porntip in March this year.

A key component of Taronga’s elephant insemination success was world renowned elephant and reproductive scientist Dr Thomas Hildebrandt, from the Institute for Zoo Biology and Wildlife Research in Berlin. Dr Hildebrandt pioneered the method of artificially inseminating elephants without surgery, and his services are in hot demand from wildlife institutes around the globe.

He stresses that artificial insemination is not the ideal solution; but is a helping hand when natural breeding becomes difficult.

“It should never replace natural mating. But artificial insemination is a very important management tool if there are some incompatibilities,” said Dr Hildebrandt.

“There may be some aggression between the [elephant] cows, or for example there may be an inbreeding problem when the bull in the facilities has been there so long that he would breed with his own daughters. There are a lot of really necessary situations where artificial insemination makes a lot of sense, but it is not an exclusive technique.”

The process is complicated and relies on a lot of smaller details working together.

“You need three elements coming together. You need very good technology to put the semen in, you have to do it at the right time, and you have to have good semen at the time you need it. These three elements are sometimes difficult to get together. The overall success rate [of elephant artificial insemination] is about 30 per cent. The success rate if all three elements are together is over 90 per cent,” said Dr Hildebrandt.

But at the birth of Taronga’s artificially inseminated calf, celebrations nearly turned into tears.

“It was in a coma and it is very difficult to determine the point when the calf is dead. But what we found was that the life signs were not there.” The calf had turned upside down in its mother’s womb, and the birth was not expected to be a success.

The calf, aptly named Pathi Harn – Thai for ‘miracle’ – was eventually born to the mother, Porntip – Thai for ‘gift from heaven’ – in the early hours of March 10.

“The birth at first was a big, big surprise which gives us lots of hope for other complicated births in the future. I think the Taronga birth is very important for the future to look in the right direction to save the life of the calf and of the mum,” said Dr Hildebrandt.

“The Taronga case was one of my favourite moments. Every elephant birth is something that is so incredible and so complicated. It’s very stressful, but in the end, it makes you very happy.”

Back at Western Plains Zoo, is “the frozen zoo” – a collection of frozen sperm and eggs of a number of the zoo’s animals as Keeley calls it. They are stored in large silver containers filled with liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees Celsius, allowing the specimens to be kept for up to 100 years. The containers contain small ‘straws’ inside of them, each filled with thousands of sperm. The sperm can then be then be used to fertilise a female in a captive breeding program, meaning an animal’s strong genetics do not go to waste.

Specimen containers at the frozen zoo. Image: Courtesy of Western Plains Zoo

The Animal Gene Storage Resource Centre of Australia (AGSRCA), also known as the Australian Frozen Zoo, takes this work done by Taronga Western Plains to a whole new level. They are home to specimens of sperm and eggs from over 100 species. It is a joint venture between Monash University Melbourne and the Zoological Parks Board of NSW.

Dr Ian Gunn, project director, has been the passion behind the AGSRCA since its establishment in 1995.

The common outsider would be forgiven for making the mistake that once an animal dies, it’s of no more use. But this is not the case. The AGSRCA can actually retrieve specimens from endangered animals that have died, ensuring they too can contribute to preservation of their species.

“The main goal is to preserve and put away as much reproductive and DNA material from any endangered wildlife that dies in captivity or dies in conservation zones. So instead of wasting all the genetic material we could collect a sample and put it away for storage or use or research in the future,” said Dr Gunn.

“The other aim is the development of IVF technology that offer a lot of scope to utilise some of the reproductive material to assist in the breeding of wildlife.”

Dr Gunn said, “The idea is to maintain a population that is viable… Most wildlife populations need at least 200 animals to maintain a viable population, to have enough genetic diversity to divide. If you’ve got very small populations spread around, then you need to transfer genes to ensure there’s enough diversity.”

The huge amount of work and technology required and the limited amount of resources available means assisted reproduction is a slow process, and not always a successful one. But when it does succeed, it is proving to be a vital lifeline for endangered animals.

Dr Hildebrandt said, “The human kind does a lot of bad things. But I think with our technology and knowledge about changing the environment, we can do something good too.”