Some of the rarest plants and wildlife in the U.S. may soon have their genetic material stored for future recovery work. The Department of the Interior announced on June 25 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has signed a memorandum of understanding with Colossal Biosciences, a Texas-based biotechnology company known for its work on de-extinction. The agreement focuses on biobanking, genomic science, and the preservation of the genetic diversity of species protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Colossal is no stranger to flashy conservation science. The company grabbed headlines after announcing it had created genetically edited gray wolves with dire wolf traits, a project it billed as the first successful de-extinction.
Colossal is calling the project a BioVault. The company says the effort will collect and preserve living cells, reproductive tissues, and genomic material from roughly 2,300 endangered and threatened plants and wildlife.
The goal is to save genetic material now, before some species lose more diversity or disappear from the landscape entirely.
What Is a BioVault?
Biobanking is the process of collecting and preserving biological material for future research or conservation work. In this case, that could include tissue samples, living cells, reproductive material, and DNA.
The material would be stored cryogenically in liquid nitrogen at -321 degrees Fahrenheit at Colossal’s Dallas headquarters and other locations. Colossal said it will spend tens of millions of dollars to build and operate the project.
FWS said the agreement does not obligate federal funding. Any future projects involving federal money, services, or property transfers would require separate agreements.
The samples could eventually help with assisted reproduction, genetic management, and recovery work for species with small or shrinking populations. That does not mean everything going into the vault is headed for cloning. It means researchers may have more options if a species loses too much genetic diversity in the wild.
The Ferret
Biobanking already has a real-world example in black-footed ferret recovery. In 2020, scientists created Elizabeth Ann, the first cloned native endangered species in North America. She was cloned from preserved cells taken from Willa, a black-footed ferret that lived in the 1980s and had no living descendants.
That work gave researchers access to genetics that had been missing from the current recovery population for decades.
What a Freezer Can’t Fix
The BioVault could help biologists preserve rare genetic material before it is lost. It could also give future recovery teams more options when small populations hit genetic bottlenecks.
It won’t solve the problems that put most species in trouble in the first place.
Frozen cells don’t protect migration corridors. They don’t restore wetlands. They don’t keep sagebrush intact, stop invasive species, slow disease, or prevent habitat from being carved up.
For genetic rescue work to matter, species still need places to live.
The ESA Backdrop
The announcement comes as the Trump administration is pursuing changes to Endangered Species Act regulations.
In November, FWS proposed eliminating the blanket rule option for future threatened species. That rule allowed the agency to automatically extend many endangered-species protections to threatened species unless FWS created a species-specific rule.
The proposed change would require species-specific 4(d) rules for threatened species instead. Federal officials say that would tailor protections to each species and reduce unnecessary restrictions. Conservation groups argue it could slow protections and leave threatened species with less automatic coverage.
FWS has also proposed changes to how economic, national security, and other impacts are weighed when areas are considered for exclusion from critical habitat.
That puts the BioVault in an interesting spot. The federal government is backing a high-tech effort to preserve genetic material from imperiled species while also reworking rules that shape how those species and their habitat are protected now.
Preserved genetic material may become a useful recovery tool. But DNA is only one small piece of keeping a species on the landscape.
