POWELL – Officials at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium have announced that two cheetah cubs have been born through in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer.
While the cubs’ biological mother is Kibibi, the male and female cubs were born to 3-year-old Izzy last Wednesday. The father is 3-year-old Slash from Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Texas.
Officials say this was the third time scientists have attempted the procedure and it was the first time it worked and it may be an important development in conservation efforts.
“This achievement expands scientific knowledge of cheetah reproduction, and may become an important part of the species’ population management in the future,” said Dr. Randy Junge, the zoo’s vice president of animal health.
Cheetahs are considered vulnerable because they currently inhabit just 10 percent of their historic range as a result of threats, including habitat loss and fragmentation, conflict with livestock and game farmers, as well as unregulated tourism.
The cubs have been observed nursing, and the male currently weighs in at 480 grams and the female weighs 350 grams.
Six-year-old Kibibi and another female, 9-year-old Bella, first received hormone injections and eggs were taken last November. The eggs were extracted and fertilized in a Columbus Zoo lab using semen collected in February 2019 from Slash and another male cheetah from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Virginia.
Izzy and her sister Ophelia were selected as surrogates because younger cheetahs have a better chance to safely deliver healthy, full-term cubs.
The eggs implanted in Ophelia did not produce any offspring, zoo officials said.