This last week saw some pretty exciting news from the Columbus Zoo, with the birth of the world's first litter of cheetah cubs through in vitro fertilization. The cubs were born to a surrogate mother, a break through in assisted reproduction for this endangered, notoriously difficult to breed species. It has exciting potential for future endeavors - sperm, eggs, and embryos can be transported from one population to another, zoo and wild and back and forth. This could have lots of implications for management in the wild, with zoo-bred embryos being transported into wild animals. The potential remains to be determined, but still - there are more cheetahs in the world, now. That can only be a good thing.
A cheetah surrogate mother licks the two cubs she bore at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium (Grahm S. Jones/ Columbus Zoo and Aquarium)
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