Even as actor Salman Khan's brief stint at the t Jodhpur jail hogged the headlines, scientists at the Hyderabad-based Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LacoNEs) held a quite celebration. Their experiment in artificially inseminating a black buck had proved to be a success. Blacky, as the fawn was named, was born on August 23 to one of the three inseminated bucks. While artificial insemination (AI) has been used to reproduce domestic animals in India, it has rarely been used for wild animals. Spotty, a cheetal, was the first wild animal to be born through AI in March last year, now followed by Blacky. Scientists at LacoNEs now plan to use the AI technique on other rare species such as vultures, Nicobar pigeons and the big cats. The lab, housed at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (ccmb), focuses on various assisted reproduction techniques including electro ejaculation, gene banking, ivf, AI and cloning to protect endangered species. "Our approach to conservation is completely different from the one that focuses on protecting habitats and animals. We essentially make use of biotechnology to improve animal fertility," says S. Shivaji, a scientist at the lab. Interestingly, scientists at LacoNEs are working on India's first reproductive cloning experiment using rabbits. While the lab has developed cloned embryos, they are yet to transplant them successfully into surrogate mothers. "We've made close to 60 unsuccessful attempts. The worldwide success rate in cloning is less than one in 100," adds Shivaji. Our Dolly, if all goes well, is expected in less than a year. Cloning will then be used to protect critically endangered species or even revive extinct ones. An ambitious but tottering project at LacoNEs aims at reviving the extinct Indian cheetah using genetic material from those currently found in Iran. "Had we had living frozen cells of the Indian cheetah, we could have revived the species," says Lalji Singh, ccmb's director. While the application of using biotechnology in wildlife conservation at this stage is still nascent, the potential is undoubtedly immense. As N.V.K. Ashraf of the Wildlife Trust of India explains, "If we have, for example, a detailed gene mapping of sloth bears at hand, it will be so much simpler to identify the regions from where they are poached for street performances since the genetic sequence of animals can be marked according to regions." But these measures also need to be widely applied. Many institutions, like the Bangalore-based National Centre for Biological Sciences, have the capacity to work with cutting-edge genetics but these services are rarely extended to research in wildlife, he adds. At the same time, wildlife conservationists are sceptical about how beneficial science may be if poaching and loss of habitat are not stemmed. "The rare species are endangered primarily due to habitat loss and hunting," says K. Ullas Karanth, a conservation zoologist. "Today, the tiger occupies only seven per cent of its former worldwide range. Laboratory tools cannot address these causes of endangerment and therefore must be viewed accordingly." Asad Rahmani, director, Bombay Natural History Society, adds that AI needs to be used on critically endangered species with breeding problems, like the Wroughton's free-tailed bat, rather than black bucks which "breed very well". "But AI and cloning should be kept aside only as the last resort in conservation. Protecting the habitat and preventing poaching should still rank top in the list of our priorities," he concludes. ?