LoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyThe US government is partnering with Texas-based de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences to build a national repository of genetic material from endangered and threatened species. The effort comes as the Trump administration moves to weaken endangered species protections, including a recent decision to waive them to expand offshore oil and gas drilling.
In collaboration with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, scientists aim to collect cells, reproductive tissues, and DNA from the more than 2,300 plant and animal species in the US and around the world that are protected under the Endangered Species Act. The samples will be cryopreserved and stored at Colossal’s lab in Dallas, with duplicate samples distributed across the country.
The company, which last year claimed to have created living dire wolf pups, will perform genetic sequencing on the samples and make the data available to researchers and conservationists. Under the partnership, the federal government will own the samples.
“We want to back up as many samples of species as we can,” says Colossal’s chief executive officer and cofounder Ben Lamm.
Colossal is providing collection kits so that its partners in the field will be able to take samples of blood, skin, and other tissue. Lamm says collection has already started.
“This collaboration brings together the scientific expertise of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the ingenuity of the private sector to develop new tools that can help recover species, preserve critical genetic resources, and strengthen the future of wildlife conservation,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says in a statement. (Fish and Wildlife, which is part of the Interior Department, did not respond to a request for more details on the partnership.)
Hypothetically, the samples could be used to rescue a species on the brink of extinction. Fish and Wildlife did this when it cloned the black-footed ferret—one of the most endangered mammals in North America—using cryopreserved cells of a ferret that died in the 1980s. Announced in 2021, it was the first instance of cloning a US endangered species. The Frozen Zoo at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance provided the sample for that work.
Under the Trump administration, Fish and Wildlife has proposed major changes to the landmark 1973 Endangered Species Act that could roll back protections for at-risk plants and animals. The proposed changes would factor in economic and national security considerations in determining protected habitat and eliminate a “blanket rule" that automatically grants threatened species the same strict protections as endangered ones.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump convened the so-called God Squad—a group of top administration officials that includes Burgum—to weigh whether to bypass endangered species protections in the Gulf of Mexico. The group, which has met just a handful of times since the creation of the Endangered Species Act, decided to grant exemptions to oil and gas drillers in the region. (Environmentalists sued the administration over the decision.)
Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based nonprofit, says the new initiative with Colossal is consistent with the administration’s stance on conservation, in part because it doesn’t conflict with industry interests.
“This isn't biodiversity preservation,” he says. “This is like a last-ditch effort. We’ll only need this genetic material if the administration fails at recovering endangered species.”
The Center for Biological Diversity has been critical of the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act. Greenwald says conservation efforts should instead focus on protecting public lands such as national parks and wilderness areas to prevent species loss. Even if it’s possible to bring back extinct or endangered species with technology, he says, there needs to be habitat left in order to support those species.
Courtesy of ColossalLamm says Colossal’s partnership with the federal government has been in the works for four years, and talks initially began with the Biden administration.
“Working with both sides of the aisle, while they have different views on things like climate change, they do agree that a world without species is bad,” he says.
Burgum praised Colossal’s dire wolf announcement last year while simultaneously criticizing the endangered species list as favoring “regulation more than innovation.” In a post on X, he cited the company’s de-extinction technology as a way to “help forge a future where populations are never at risk.”
“They really do like technology,” Lamm says of the Trump administration. “They seem to like making money and saving money.” Colossal’s pitch to the administration was that it would front the costs of the biobank.
The five-year-old startup has made splashy announcements about reviving extinct species, including last year when it used gene-editing techniques on gray wolves to create traits found in extinct dire wolves. It also used gene editing to produce what it dubbed “woolly mice” due to their mammoth-like fur. The company, which is valued at more than $10 billion, also has ambitions of bringing back the dodo bird and woolly mammoth in the name of restoring ecosystems and combating climate change.
The collaboration with the US government is part of Colossal’s BioVault project, which it announced earlier this year. The company has not said exactly how much money it has invested in the initiative, but Lamm says it is in the range of “tens of millions of dollars.” It’s also partnering with the United Arab Emirates, whose government recently invested $60 million in the company, to bank genetic material from endangered species within the country and globally. That collection will be housed inside Dubai’s Museum of the Future.
Lamm says the BioVault is not in competition with existing conservation techniques but rather works as a “redundancy backup.”
