Colossal and the US Government Are Creating an Endangered Species ‘BioVault’

The 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 pr