The Animal Biobanking for Conservation Specialist Group is organizing a worldwide effort to collect, bank, and share genetic resources.

SAN DIEGO (Dec. 19, 2023) – For more than a decade, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s entomology team has collaborated with Australia’s Melbourne Zoo to maintain populations of the critically endangered Lord Howe Island stick insect. For the first time in North America, visitors to the San Diego Zoo will have the opportunity to see these rare, nocturnal insects in a specialized habitat at the Zoo’s Wildlife Explorers Basecamp.

SAN DIEGO (Dec. 13, 2023) – San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife recently rescued three orphaned mountain lion cubs. The cubs—approximately 6 weeks old at the time of their rescue—were each found separately following an extensive search over the span of a week. Each cub was treated in the field for dehydration before being taken to Paul Harter Veterinary Medical Center at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Because the young lions were orphaned at an early age, they cannot be safely reintroduced into their native habitat. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife designated the San Diego Zoo Safari Park as a safe haven for the rescued cubs, offering them a second chance and lifelong care.

SAN DIEGO (Dec. 12, 2023) – San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance will welcome two new members to its Board of Trustees next month with the appointment of Adam Day, chief administrative officer for the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, and Kenji M. Price, Managing Counsel at Epic Games, Inc. Starting their tenure on January 1, Day and Price aim to add extensive expertise to the board and further the nonprofit conservation organization's mission of global wildlife conservation. 

SAN DIEGO (Dec. 7, 2023) – In 2017, a team of medical experts—including specialists in the treatment of both human and wildlife patients—gathered to assess an esteemed elder resident of the San Diego Zoo Safari Park: Winston, a critically endangered silverback gorilla. Today, at age 51, he is considered one of the world's oldest male gorillas in managed care.

SAN DIEGO (Dec. 6, 2023) – The Endangered Species Act turns 50 years old this year. A new report released by the Endangered Species Coalition, Ten Stories of Hope: The Endangered Species Act at 50, highlights 10 case studies of conservationists using different strategies to protect and recover imperiled fish, birds, plants and mammals in the United States. Ninety-nine percent of species protected under the Endangered Species Act have been saved from extinction, including the humpback whale, grizzly bear and bald eagle. The Top Ten report features the Stephens’ kangaroo rat and the efforts of San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance to help recover the species using conservation translocation.

SAN DIEGO (Nov. 30, 2023) – Scientists at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance have achieved a major milestone in saving wildlife species: With a blue-eyed black lemur’s cells recently added to its Wildlife Biodiversity Bank’s Frozen Zoo®, the nonprofit conservation organization’s unique collection of genetic material now contains 11,00o individual cell lines from more than 1,250 species and subspecies—some critically endangered. No other biobank in the world has a comparable number of living cell lines, with the potential to reverse losses of genetic diversity and contribute to population sustainability for  endangered and threatened wildlife species.

SAN DIEGO (Nov. 27, 2023) – For the third consecutive year, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance will partner with the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena and participate in the 135th Rose Parade® presented by Honda on New Year’s Day. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s parade float theme—“It Began with a Roar”—will feature a myriad of heartwarming stories from the San Diego Zoo that have inspired generations to care for and protect wildlife.

SAN DIEGO (Nov. 27, 2023) – When a mysterious illness called “sea star wasting syndrome” decimated 95% of the sunflower sea star population, and some 20 other sea star species along the Pacific Coast from Baja to Alaska in 2013, scientists rallied to understand the factors that caused such a massive wasting event. Now as part of the greater recovery initiative, in a scientific first, dozens of baby sunflower sea stars were hatched and are thriving thanks to a breakthrough in reproductive cell cryopreservation technology.

Biodiversity banking is a critical component of conservation, and the need for it is more urgent than ever.