EXCEPTIONALLY CUTE

First-Ever Endangered Animal to Be Cloned Is a Ferret Named Elizabeth Ann

The two-month-old black-footed ferret is a clone of a ferret named Willa whose DNA was frozen in 1998.

Elizabeth Ann is one-of-a-kind, sort of. The 2-month-old black-footed ferret is the first member of an endangered species to be cloned. Black-footed ferrets were thought to be extinct in the U.S. decades ago, but a small population was discovered in 1981 and scientists helped them re-populate. The group is still endangered, however, and Elizabeth Ann, who resides at a Fish and Wildlife facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, is a clone of a ferret named Willa whose DNA was frozen in 1998. Elizabeth Ann’s keepers report she is feisty, as is typical of her species. “You might have been handling a black-footed ferret kit and then they try to take your finger off the next day,” Peter Gober, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said. “She’s holding her own.”