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Course:CONS200/2026WT2/An overview of genetic engineering for wildlife conservation: Opportunities, risks and limitations

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Introduction

Genetic engineering (GE) is the intentional manipulation of an organism’s DNA in a laboratory to alter its physical and biological characteristics. Although it has traditionally been applied in agriculture and medicine, GE is now emerging as a promising and controversial tool for wildlife conservation.

Due to the acceleration of anthropogenic climate change, the impacts on wildlife are vast, such as environmental degradation,  habitat and biodiversity loss, competition from invasive species, and increased proliferation of diseases and pathogens. Traditional conservation methods, such as protected areas and captive breeding programs, focus on protecting wildlife from external threats such as poaching and habitat loss. These strategies can protect individuals and populations, but fail to effectively enable species to adapt to their ever-changing environments.

As a result, more proactive solutions that facilitate species adaptation have become increasingly popular. By using GE, scientists can proactively prepare species for the changes in their environment that could compromise their survival. This proactive strategy can result in a multitude of benefits, like improving resistance against emerging diseases such as fungal infections in amphibians[1]. This shift of strategy from protected areas to proactive adaptation represents a pivotal juncture in human and wildlife coexistence, where humans transition away from attempting to protect wildlife from human impacts towards a strategy that prioritizes developing resiliency for the wildlife.

Although genetic engineering presents many advantages, it is not without potential consequences. When humans intervene to genetically modify wildlife, it goes against the balance of nature. This raises ethical concerns of deciding which species are most important, and additional concerns exist if the promotion of one species results in the extinction of another. Unintended ecological consequences, such as the loss of biodiversity, are possible if a genetically engineered species outcompetes another species in the same habitat.  

What is Genetic Engineering?

Genetic engineering, or genetic modification, is a process that alters the characteristics of an organism by using deliberate human technological intervention to alter the organism’s DNA[2]. DNA is composed of four nitrogenous bases: Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Cytosine (C), and Guanine (G). GE's impact can be as small as the replacement of a single base pair (A, T, C, G) with another or the deletion of an entire segment of DNA[3]. With this technology, scientists are able to modify the genetic material of organisms, creating genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with beneficial traits such as disease resistance, improved reproductive success, and enhanced adaptability to changing environmental conditions[4]. The use of GE allows species to adapt much faster than they would with natural methods such as natural selection and selective breeding.

History of Genetic Engineering in Conservation

The technological landscape of genetic engineering in wildlife conservation operates under the broader framework of synthetic biology. This approach applies engineering principles to biology, allowing scientists to redesign existing, natural biological systems or construct entirely new biological parts for conservation purposes[5]. With rapid advances in molecular biotechnology, recent genetic engineering has leaped from early basic recombinant DNA techniques to precision tools with high specificity and practical potential.

Examples of Genetic Engineering In Conservation

As the human population expands, there will be more demand for food, and thus, more natural habitat land will be converted for agricultural use for livestock, food crops, and feed crops. This poses a tremendous risk to wildlife conservation as the wildlife who previously inhabited that land face greater threats to their survival due to loss of habitat, degradation of the environment, livestock-wildlife conflict, and increased risk of disease transmission[6]. To combat this risk, Zhang et al. (2018)[7] developed a transgenic pig that showed an 11.5–14.5% improvement in feed conversion rate compared with the wild-type pigs, and growth rate improved by 23.0% (gilts) and 24.4% (boars) compared with that of age-matched wild-type littermates under the same dietary treatment. Additionally, fecal nitrogen and phosphorus outputs in the transgenic pigs were reduced by 23.2 - 45.8%. These results indicate a tremendous opportunity to increase overall food production without increasing wildlife habitat conversion and environmental pollution. By optimizing the efficiency of human consumption systems, GE serves as a mitigation strategy for wildlife conservation against the ecological pressures of land-use expansion.

One of the most significant technological breakthroughs is the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing system. This advancement acts as highly precise “molecular scissors,” which allows scientists to make extremely accurate modifications, additions, or deletions within the DNA sequences of wild organisms[8]. Another area of revolutionary progress is “gene drives” technology. Under traditional Mendelian inheritance, the probability of a specific gene being passed to the next generation is 50%. However, modern gene drives, coupled with CRISPR, bypass this limitation, which force specific genetic traits to be inherited by nearly 100% of all wild offspring[9]. This advanced technology is currently being actively developed to control invasive alien species, such as rodents that destroy island ecosystems. Finally, advanced reproductive technologies and stem cell research have opened unprecedented pathways for “de-extinction” and genetic rescue.

Benefits of Genetic Engineering

Advanced reproductive technologies and stem cell research have opened unprecedented pathways for “de-extinction” and genetic rescue. Through somatic cell nuclear transfer (cloning) or precisely splicing ancient DNA sequences into extant closely related species, scientists are not only attempting to restore key ecological traits of extinct species but also injecting new genetic diversity into critically endangered species facing genetic bottlenecks[10]. Together, these continuously evolving technologies form the core of modern conservation genetic engineering.

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References

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  1. ↑ Zahoor, M. A. A., Haidar, S. H., Rafique, S., Ahmed, U., Umber Rauf, M. A., Hanif, U., & Shehryar, M. (2025). Biotechnological Advances in Wildlife Conservation: Genetic Engineering, Cloning, Ecosystem Restoration, and Nanoparticle Applications. Scholars Academic Journal of Biosciences, 4, 386-416 [Accessed April 11. 2026].
  2. ↑ Ormandy, E. H., Dale, J., & Griffin, G. (2011, May). Genetic Engineering of Animals: Ethical issues, including welfare concerns. The Canadian veterinary journal = La revue veterinaire canadienne. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3078015/
  3. ↑ Smith, M. (2026). Genetic Engineering. National Human Genome Research Institute . https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Genetic-Engineering
  4. ↑ Zahoor, M. A. A., Haidar, S. H., Rafique, S., Ahmed, U., Umber Rauf, M. A., Hanif, U., & Shehryar, M. (2025). Biotechnological Advances in Wildlife Conservation: Genetic Engineering, Cloning, Ecosystem Restoration, and Nanoparticle Applications. Scholars Academic Journal of Biosciences, 4, 386-416 [Accessed April 11. 2026].
  5. ↑ Redford, Kent; Adams, William; Carlson, Rob; Mace, Georgina; Ceccarelli, Bertina (July 2024). "Synthetic biology and the conservation of biodiversity". Oryx. Vol 48: 330–336 – via Cambridge University Press.
  6. ↑ Murphy, K. J., Byrne, A. W., Marples, N., O’Hagan, M. J. H., Kelly, D. J., Quinn, D., Breslin, P., Moreja-Pujol, V., Khouri, R. M., Barrett, D., McGrath, G., & Cutti, S. (2025, July 1). Wildlife response to land-use change forces encounters between zoonotic disease hosts and farms in agricultural landscapes. Science Direct. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167880925000933#ab0010
  7. ↑ Zhang, X., Li, Z., Yang, H., Liu, D., Cai, G., Li, G., Mo, J., Wang, D., Zhong, C., Wang, H., Sun, Y., Shi, J., Zheng, E., Meng, F., Zhang, M., He, X., Zhou, R., Zhang, J., Huang, M., … Wu, Z. (2018). Novel transgenic pigs with enhanced growth and reduced environmental impact. eLife. https://elifesciences.org/articles/34286
  8. ↑ Zahoor, M. A. A., Haidar, S. H., Rafique, S., Ahmed, U., Umber Rauf, M. A., Hanif, U., & Shehryar, M. (2025). Biotechnological Advances in Wildlife Conservation: Genetic Engineering, Cloning, Ecosystem Restoration, and Nanoparticle Applications. Scholars Academic Journal of Biosciences, 4, 386-416 [Accessed April 11. 2026].
  9. ↑ Godwin, J., Serr, M., Barnhill-Dilling, S. K., Blondel, D. V., Brown, P. R., Campbell, K., Delborne, J., Lloyd, A. L., Oh, K. P., Prowse, T. A., Saah, R., & Thomas, P. (2019). Rodent gene drives for conservation: Opportunities and data needs. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 286(1914), 20191606. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.1606
  10. ↑ Turner, S. D., Keyte, A., Pask, A., & Shapiro, B. (2025). De-extinction technology and its application to conservation. Journal of Heredity. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esaf069
  11. ↑ En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Writing better articles. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles [Accessed 18 Jan. 2018].


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