TEST-TUBE BAMBI: The world’s first surviving Eld’s deer fawn born from in vitro fertilization, with its surrogate mother at Khao Kheow Open Zoo, Thailand KHAO KHEOW OPEN ZOO, THAILAND
On October 17, 2011, a fawn was born at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand. It wasn’t just any fawn; it was an Eld’s deer, considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Fewer than 1,500 of the graceful, brown animals remain in the wild, their historic numbers reduced by habitat loss and hunting. But the fawn born last fall wasn’t just any Eld’s deer; it was created by researchers who collected eggs, inseminated them in vitro after thawing frozen semen, and transferred the embryos to a surrogate mother.
“I was really excited,” says Pierre Comizzoli, a reproductive physiologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, who oversaw the Eld’s deer project. “[It was] the first test-tube fawn [to survive]. Last year [2010] ...
