Gone Forever Over Extinction’s Edge?
Nunki and Filly Spica, Sept 9, 1998. Photo by Andrea Mills.
The last of her rare kind, a horse named Nunki, died in 2015. Yet now, ten years later, her genetically rich, rare duplicate may live again.
World wide, two attempts have been made to clone and restore extinct wild animals. A Pyrenean Ibex cloned by a group in Spain in 2003 didn’t survive. ViaGen Equine, of Whitesboro, Texas, successfully cloned two endangered Przewalski’s horses which are extinct in the wild.
A third attempt is about to begin. Arkwild, (501(c)3) supporting the Abaco Spanish Colonial Horses in the Bahamas since April 2004, is joining forces with ViaGen Equine to produce two clones of the last mare of a time capsule line of the original Spanish Colonial Horses once living on Great Abaco in the Bahamas. The horses were imported from Cuba, home of the Spanish Colonial, to haul logs from forests being clear cut on Abaco in the 1860’s.
A partial view of the herd around 1995, including Stallion Kochab, who is pacing. Nunki is the little bay filly in the middle alongside three splash whites. The herd usually was close to 50/50 between splash white and solid coated. Photo by Milanne Rehor.
Replaced by tractors and abandoned in the 40’s the Abaco Colonials bucked the odds and grew into a mighty herd, perhaps 200 strong: pinto, bay and roan horses rippling through thousands of acres of returning pine forest. Until humans slaughtered all but three in the 1960’s. The three survived and by the 1970’s reached 35, now genetically challenged but still carrying a wealth of rare DNA.
When Mare Nunki, the last Abaco Spanish Colonial Horse, died at the Horse Preserve in Treasure Cay, Abaco, the ASC became extinct. She was a direct descendent of the ancestors of the American Mustang and many derivative breeds in North and South America.
Dr. E. Gus Cothran, Emeritus professor at the Animal Genetics Laboratory at Texas A&M, notes that the Abaco horses are “Historically significant and genetically unusual. Living on an island, the herd had preserved and amplified its Old World genes in a way that few feral breeds have.” “What we [had] there on Abaco is the old actual colonial introduced horse rather than a more modernly introduced Spanish horse,” Cothran says. Such a clear link to the equines that were introduced to the Americas in the 15th century is rare.
Arkwild is becoming active again after the rampages of Hurricane Dorian, which destroyed the horses’ preserve. Covid and global challenges nearly destroyed Arkwild. As the horses once recovered Arkwild is recovering to challenge extinction. Deep within the cryogenic chill of ViaGen Equine’s labs are vials of living tissue removed from Nunki moments after her death.
From the day two surrogate mares are impregnated with material from Nunki and a designated stallion it will take six years to be able to say Success, with each step along the way being a major success in its own right: one year for the surrogates to bear the clones, 4-5 yrs for the clones to reach reproductive maturity and produce foals.
Nunki, November 2006. Though she died in 2015, Nunki’s living tissue can bring back The Abaco Spanish Colonials. Photo by Milanne Rehor.
Timeline:
Phase 1. Research and documentation
30 years
On going
Phase 2. Produce two clones. When they reach reproductive maturity
impregnate the clones and their recipient mothers.
5-6 years.
Phase 3. Expand herd, find suitable location for continued growth of herd
and start of equine therapy program.
Ongoing study and research.
More. info available from:
Milanne Rehor
President
Arkwild, Inc.
email: arkwild4@gmail.com
site: www.arkwild.org/blog/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/arkwild
FB: Abaco Horses
1-561-418-0586
Press release by Milanne Rehor, President of Arkwild, Inc.
