'Frozen Zoo' bringing back thousands of animal species vanishing across the planet

SAN DIEGO (KABC) -- Thousands of animal species are vanishing across the planet. But one local zoo is trying to change things and help reverse the loss of these species around the globe.

The San Diego Safari Park hosts over a million guests a year to see animals roam areas designed to resemble their natural habitat. But tucked away from the public eye is the "Frozen Zoo"... visited by far fewer guests, but critical to continued life on the planet for many species.

"We're trying preserve as many living cells from as many species and individuals as we can before they go extinct or before their numbers drop," said curator Marlys Houck.

The Frozen Zoo is the world's oldest and largest collection of living animal cell lines: Over 10,000 individual animals, 1200 different species or subspecies. The rare or extinct animals are collected and stored with the hope that one day science can revive them as a species.

"We have no idea what will be possible in the future with these cells. So these cells should be in the Frozen Zoo for decades beyond us. Long after we're gone and how will technology improve over that time?" said Houck.

The Frozen Zoo might seem like a holding tank for the future, and it is... but there are examples of how there are very real successes happening right now.

Three years ago at the Rhino Rescue Center, a Southern white rhino was born after artificial insemination using semen from the Frozen Zoo. It's significant because Southern white rhinos could become surrogates for the functionally extinct Northern white rhino.

Kurt is a genetic clone of a Przewalski stallion who lived over 40 years ago. His species was extinct in the wild 30 years ago. His DNA was saved in the Frozen Zoo and now he roams the San Diego Safari Park and will provide genetic diversity to the herd.

"We see that we can bring life back. We can bring animals back from the Frozen Zoo. And that's the whole reason to have a Frozen Zoo, it's to preserve that genetic diversity and then use it... bring it back," said Barbara Durrant, Director of Reproductive Sciences.

During our visit, we saw the cells of the extinct black-faced honey creeper, thawed and showing signs of life... something fewer than a dozen people in the world have seen. The hope is, work done here in this small lab in San Diego, can be repeated around the world to reverse the damage caused by humans.

"If we take a species out of the ecosystem, the ecosystem is lessened and even can collapse completely," said Durrant.

"We can't do it all here and we don't have access to all of the species so that's where we want to go in the future is to train other people, as many as we can," said Houck. "And then they can train others and really spread this information."