Goodable

A zoo in Spain was celebrating the birth of its very first southern white rhino this week, sharing footage of the long-awaited moment and more videos of the adorable calf and first-time mom Kwanza.

BIOPARC Valencia said the birth on Tuesday, November 4, “represents hope” for the near-threatened species that is targeted by poachers hunting for rhino horn.

“Both the delivery and the first few hours are progressing normally,” the zoo said. “The mother gives him all the attention he needs and the ‘baby rhinoceros’ is lively.”

“The baby got up within minutes of being born and moved around, following its instinct, seeking refuge and warmth from its mother,” the statement continued.

A zoo in Spain was celebrating the birth of its very first southern white rhino this week, sharing footage of the long-awaited moment and more videos of the adorable calf and first-time mom Kwanza.BIOPARC Valencia said the birth on Tuesday, November 4, “represents hope” for the near-threatened species that is targeted by poachers hunting for rhino horn.“Both the delivery and the first few hours are progressing normally,” the zoo said. “The mother gives him all the attention he needs and the ‘baby rhinoceros’ is lively.”“The baby got up within minutes of being born and moved around, following its instinct, seeking refuge and warmth from its mother,” the statement continued.

Spanish Zoo Celebrates Birth Of First Southern White Rhino Calf

Talker News

A family dog might be doing more than offering emotional comfort — it could be reshaping a teenager’s biology in ways that support better mental health.

According to a new study from Japan, owning a dog during adolescence is linked to healthier social behavior and reduced emotional problems, and the effect may come down to a surprising factor: microbes.

Researchers from Azabu University found that dogs can influence the microbiome — the community of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that live in and on the human body — in teens, particularly the makeup of bacteria in the mouth. These subtle microbial shifts may, in turn, influence social behavior and mental well-being.

“Raising dogs has beneficial effects, especially for adolescents, and these effects may be mediated through symbiosis with microorganisms,” said lead author Professor Takefumi Kikusui, whose findings were published in the journal iScience.

From Dog Companions to Bacterial Co-Pilots

Kikusui and his team have previously shown that people who grow up with dogs tend to report higher levels of social support and companionship. Other research has linked dog ownership to increased microbial diversity in the gut — a sign of a healthier microbiome.

But this new study took a closer look at adolescents. The team studied 13-year-olds and found that owning a dog at that age predicted better mental and behavioral health scores — including significantly lower levels of social problems — compared to those without dogs at home.

They also examined the teens’ oral microbiome, sequencing the bacteria found in the mouth. While overall diversity remained similar between dog owners and non-owners, there were noticeable shifts in specific bacterial groups in those who lived with dogs.

Can Microbes Influence Behavior?

To test whether those microbial differences actually mattered, researchers transferred oral microbiota from the teens into lab mice.

The results were striking: Mice given microbiota from dog-owning teens showed more social behavior. They spent more time sniffing cage mates and approached trapped companions more often — behaviors considered signs of prosociality and empathy in animal studies.

“The most interesting finding from this study is that bacteria promoting pro-sociality, or empathy, were discovered in the microbiomes of adolescent children who keep dogs,” said Kikusui.

The researchers believe this may reflect a gut-brain connection, in which microbes influence neurological and emotional pathways. The implication is that dogs could be nudging that system in a positive direction by shaping the bacterial environment in young people.

A Relationship Built Over Millennia

While the science of microbiomes is still evolving, Kikusui says the study suggests a deeper benefit to growing up with dogs — one that may go beyond companionship.

“The benefits of dog ownership include providing a sense of security through interaction,” he said, “but I believe it also holds value in its potential to alter the symbiotic microbial community.”

He added that these effects are likely the product of tens of thousands of years of human-canine coexistence, during which dogs and humans may have shaped each other's biology in unseen ways.

For families with teens, it may be yet another reason to welcome a furry friend into the home — not just for love and laughter, but for invisible health benefits too.

Family Dogs May Boost Teen Mental Health by Changing Their Microbiome, Study Finds

ESPN

New York Jets cornerback Kris Boyd stunned teammates on Wednesday when he walked into the team facility for the first time since being shot in the abdomen three weeks ago.

Boyd, who had been recovering quietly after a life-threatening incident outside a Manhattan restaurant, joined the special teams meeting and even closed it out — a gesture that caught everyone off guard.

“It was awesome to see him,” said tight end Jeremy Ruckert. “It’s not something that we at all thought or knew was going to happen today, so it was a good surprise to see him with such high hopes and positive energy.”

The 27-year-old, known for his special teams contributions and time with the Minnesota Vikings before joining the Jets, spent much of the day reconnecting with teammates and coaches. His former Vikings teammate Harrison Phillips, now a defensive tackle with the Jets, said it was clear how much Boyd’s presence meant.

“I’m pretty sure every single person that walked by gave him a dap up, a high five, or a semi-hug,” Phillips said.

Boyd’s appearance comes just a week after he shared on social media that he had returned to the hospital due to lingering health issues. Before that, he had remained mostly out of the public eye, posting on Nov. 19 that he was “starting to breathe on my own” following multiple medical procedures.

The shooting happened in the early hours of Nov. 16. Boyd was leaving a midtown Manhattan restaurant around 2 a.m. with teammates Jamien Sherwood, Irvin Charles, and another friend when an argument reportedly broke out with another group — sparked by comments about their clothing. A gun was fired during the exchange, and Boyd was hit in the abdomen. The bullet traveled to his lung and lodged in his pulmonary artery, police said.

He was rushed to Bellevue Hospital and listed in critical but stable condition for the first three days. Police say they’ve identified a possible shooter but haven’t made any arrests yet. The investigation remains ongoing.

Despite being out for the season with a shoulder injury from training camp, Boyd has remained close with several players on the roster. Seeing him walk into the building, upright and smiling, was emotional for many.

“I’ve had friends that didn’t survive gunshot wounds,” said edge rusher Jermaine Johnson. “So to be able to see him walking around with a smile on his face… it’s always a blessing.”

Johnson said he didn’t recognize Boyd at first. “I saw this guy kind of limping around. But then he came closer and I was like, ‘Ahh.’ I just gave him a hug and said, ‘I’m glad to see you.’”

The Jets, sitting at 3-9 and enduring their 10th straight losing season, are long out of playoff contention. But Boyd’s unexpected return brought something else to the locker room: perspective.

“He’s just thankful, really,” said safety Isaiah Oliver. “He’s real grateful to be able to still be here, honestly.”

While his season is officially over, Boyd’s return served as a rare bright spot for a struggling team. One that, at least for a moment, wasn’t about stats, standings, or storylines — just the relief of seeing a teammate survive something far more serious than football.

Kris Boyd Surprises New York Jets Teammates with Inspiring Visit After Shooting Recovery

GoodGoodGood

A rural school district in Batesville, Arkansas, faced a dilemma familiar to many across the U.S.: budget shortfalls, low teacher pay, and a revolving door of educators either leaving or taking on second jobs to make ends meet.

Then they tried something different. They installed solar panels — and it changed everything.

What began as a $250,000 annual budget deficit has now become a $1.8 million surplus, enough to give every teacher in the district a raise of up to $15,000, according to CBS News.

Today, more than 9,000 schools across the country run on solar power, reaching over 6 million students. But Batesville appears to be the first to take those savings and put them directly into teacher paychecks.

In a district where the average teacher salary hovered around $45,000, the impact has been enormous. Educators who once juggled second jobs or left town for better-paying positions are now staying — and new teachers are applying in greater numbers.

“We were willing to take some risks because the option was we weren’t getting anywhere. Our budget was going nowhere,” said Superintendent Michael Hester in a Harvard education podcast. “Out of desperation comes innovation.”

The turnaround began with an energy audit. Hester was stunned to learn that switching to clean energy could save the district at least $2.4 million over two decades.

That projection kicked off a transformation. The district converted an empty field into a solar farm and installed 1,500 solar panels on the front of the high school. The project was led by Entegrity, a sustainability and energy services company.

“Batesville has reduced the checks they write to utilities and increased the checks they write to teachers,” said Rick Vance, a regional director at Entegrity.

The results were immediate. Resignations dropped. Resumes poured in. The district’s finances stabilized. And the story didn’t stop in Batesville.

“There’s at least 20 school districts just in our area that have emulated our model,” Hester told CBS News. “We have the numbers to prove and to show from performance that we’re walking the walk. That’s a slam-dunk for districts around us.”

In a town of just 10,000 people, where attracting and keeping educators has always been a challenge, the solar panels have done more than just power the buildings. They’ve powered a movement — one where teachers are valued, budgets are balanced, and a small town in Arkansas is showing the rest of the country what’s possible.

A Small Arkansas School District Used Solar Power to Solve a Budget Crisis, and Gave Every Teacher a Raise

ABC News

Chile has passed new legislation that bans the use of mobile phones and smart devices during elementary and middle school classes, making it the latest country to limit screen time for students in a bid to reduce distractions and support mental health.

The law, approved overwhelmingly by lawmakers in the lower house of Congress on Tuesday, will take effect at the start of the 2026 school year. It prohibits smartphone use during class hours, with exceptions only for emergencies or educational purposes outlined in the law. President Gabriel Boric is expected to sign the bill in the coming weeks.

“We are advancing a cultural change for children and adolescents who today, more than ever, need to see each other’s faces again, socialize during recess, and regain concentration to further boost learning,” Education Minister Nicolás Cataldo wrote on social media following the vote.

The move comes after years of advocacy from teachers and parents, who argue that smartphones are interfering with learning and social development. Concerns have grown globally over the impact of screen time on mental health, particularly among young people.

Chile joins a growing list of countries that have imposed various restrictions on phones in schools, including France, Brazil, Hungary, the Netherlands, and China.

In Santiago, one school piloted a program earlier this year that blocked cellphone signals entirely — and reported success in reducing distractions.

The most recent data from the OECD, which tracks student performance worldwide, found that more than half of Chilean students said digital devices had disrupted their learning.

Supporters of the law see it as a necessary step toward restoring focus in classrooms and encouraging more in-person interaction among students. Critics have raised questions about enforcement and how exceptions will be defined, but the broad consensus among lawmakers signals strong support for the change.

Once signed into law, Chilean schools will have just over a year to prepare for the transition.

Chile Passes Law Banning Cellphones in Classrooms to Help Students Focus and Reconnect

People

At 58, Tom Cillo didn’t just return to college — he strapped on a helmet and joined the football team.

Cillo, a freshman defensive lineman at Division III Lycoming College in Pennsylvania, is now one of the oldest players in college football history. And he’s doing it with a full course load, a battered body, and three adult kids cheering him on.

“My heart felt like I could still physically pull this off,” he told PEOPLE.

He wasn’t always so sure. Cillo admits he’d thought about playing football for years but never believed he could actually do it. He tried to join his high school team once as a teenager but quit within two days. He worked construction, spent 33 years with the city of Williamsport, and later took a job at his former high school as an equipment manager and custodian. That’s where things started to shift.

“I absolutely loved working with the student athletes,” he said. He even began training some of them in the mornings before school, just because he cared. “I don’t want a penny,” he told parents who offered to pay. “I want to see the programs excel and improve.”

Eventually, the idea of going back to school and finally playing the sport he loved grew stronger. “I’ve always held myself back,” he said. “This fear of failure, or of ‘What if I’m not good enough?’”

But something changed.

“I thought, for once in my life, I’m going to write the script,” he said. “I’m not going to let somebody else write the script for me.”

He pitched the idea to a friend he trained with, who was immediately on board. “Tom, if you think you can do this, do it man,” the friend told him. “You won’t know unless you give it a shot.”

So he did. Cillo enrolled as a criminal justice major and started training. Unlike most freshmen, he came in with decades of life experience — and a body that needed a little more recovery time. “I stayed in shape throughout the years,” he said. “This isn’t something where I was spending day after day on a sofa.”

Still, training camp was brutal. “I’m so sore, I’m always sore now,” he said, laughing. “This is college football, and it’s tough, and it’s hard, and it’s physical, and it’s challenging.” There were moments when he thought about quitting. “I was ready to say, ‘You know what, I can’t do this, it’s too hard.’”

But a text from a friend helped him stay the course. It said just two words: Be unbreakable.

“I tucked that word into my memory, and had to reference it a few times,” he said.

Cillo’s story has taken off far beyond the field. His age-defying pursuit of a college football dream has led to a partnership with Aspercreme — a necessity, he jokes — and sparked a wave of support from around the world.

“I have had messages from Bosnia, Germany, Spain, England, Australia, Mexico, all over the United States,” he said. “Honestly, it’s overwhelming.” The messages have come from people of all ages — from preteens to people in their 80s — who say his story inspired them. “I bet you I’ve seen the word inspiration literally thousands of times,” he said. “There’s times I’ll sit in my car and reflect on things, and I get emotional about it.”

The classroom has been its own challenge. Cillo says a drug and alcohol problem in his teens and early 20s disrupted his academics. “One of the things I wanted to prove to myself was could I take the classroom serious,” he said. “After 41 years, that was probably the most intimidating part.”

So far, so good. He’s currently holding three Bs and an A — and is proud of it.

Cillo’s three children — Ryan, 21, Nicole, 28, and stepson Shawn, 32 — are older than most of his teammates, but they’ve backed him all the way. His teammates, too, have shown support, even as the novelty of playing alongside someone three decades older hasn’t entirely worn off.

“They’ve been great,” Cillo said. “They just treat me like one of the guys.”

As for what’s next, he’s not making predictions. For now, it’s about showing up, staying unbreakable, and living the dream he once talked himself out of. “There were people that thought, well, he’ll never make it out of training camp, he’ll never survive the season,” he said.

He did. And if the soreness is any indication, he’s still going.

How This 58-Year-Old Just Achieved His College Football Dream and Inspired Worldwide

It wasn’t a dramatic reveal or a sweeping gesture. Just a short, quiet video of a man walking into a Hair Cuttery on a military base. But for Ashleigh Vaillancourt Seegar, it changed everything.

Twenty-five years after her father died at age 27, Seegar received a Facebook message that made time collapse in on itself. A distant cousin had been digitizing old home videos and stumbled on three clips of her dad — footage no one in her immediate family had ever seen.

“It was actually my father's birthday,” she told PEOPLE, describing the surreal moment she opened the message. “This time, for some reason, they picked me.”

The relative, who is around the same age James Vaillancourt would have been today, had reached out before on her dad’s birthday. But never with anything like this.

James died in 2000, leaving behind three young children. Ashleigh was six. Her younger brothers were even smaller, too young to remember him at all. In her memories, he existed in fragments — a funny, social, goofy young military dad who seemed larger than life and yet somehow faded with time.

“I thought I had seen every photo and video that existed of him,” she said. “It never occurred to me that something new could show up.”

One of the clips shows James, off-duty and full of energy, walking into a Norfolk military base salon. It’s casual, almost mundane. But to Seegar, it was astonishing. She instantly recognized the location. Then came the voice, the movement, the laugh. And the realization: “It was interesting seeing his personality, right?”

In the video, her father jokes, smiles, performs a little for the camera — something that felt instantly familiar. “It just reminded me of my brothers and me,” she said. “Our personalities, just being silly and joking with friends and putting a show on for the camera.”

She shared the clips with her mother, grandmother, and siblings, each watching it privately, in their own time. “We all just kind of watched it on our own,” she said. The reactions came quickly — and were all strikingly similar. “It's so weird hearing his voice or his laugh,” they told each other. What stuck with them most was how much her brothers resemble their dad — in ways they never noticed before.

The footage hit her hard. She cried as soon as she pressed play. Then came a wave of deeper reflection — especially now that she's a parent herself.

“My daughter is the same age now that I was when he died,” she said. The clip forced her to see the loss not just through a child’s eyes, but through the lens of a parent. “How all the dominoes have fallen throughout the years,” she said.

She thought of her mother, left to raise three kids on her own. She thought of the silence that had grown around her father’s memory over time — how rarely the family talked about him, how few people were left who had truly known him. Her grandmother finds it too painful, she said, and without siblings or close friends of his in the picture, “We don't really have much contact with anyone who knew him.”

That made the footage all the more powerful. “I think it did also heal something in me,” she said. A part of her grief she hadn’t even realized was still there.

She posted one of the clips to TikTok with the caption: “when someone who knew your dad randomly sends you a video of him you've never seen 25 years after his death.” It resonated widely.

In the post, she explained that her father died just a month after his 27th birthday. Now, she and her brothers have all outlived him.

What moved her most was the ordinariness of the moment. “Here we are, 25 years later… and here he lives in this video,” she said.

The experience has shifted how she thinks about memory, loss, and what endures. She’s started taking more videos of herself and her husband — not for Instagram, but so her daughters will one day have more than just fragments.

“Even though we die, a piece of us, I guess, still carries on,” she said. The video felt like a “little piece of his soul,” something she didn’t expect to find so late in her life — but now can’t imagine not having.

And that, she says, is what makes a quiet clip of a young man walking toward a haircut so powerful. It’s a moment that now belongs not just to her, but to the next generation — and to anyone who needs a reminder that even the smallest memories can last forever.

Video of Late Father Uncovered, Bringing New Memories to Daughter

In Rio de Janeiro’s Flamengo Park, a rare and fleeting event is unfolding: the towering talipot palms, introduced more than half a century ago by famed landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, are flowering for the first — and last — time in their lives.

The palms, native to southern India and Sri Lanka, live for decades — anywhere from 40 to 80 years — and bloom only once before dying. Now, after more than 60 years in the park’s soil, they’re sending up massive central stalks covered with millions of creamy-white flowers, drawing crowds of curious onlookers.

“I probably won’t see them flower,” said Vinicius Vanni, a 42-year-old civil engineer visiting the park. “But they’ll be there for future generations.” He’s hoping to collect seedlings from the flowering trees to plant elsewhere.

The talipot palm (Corypha umbraculifera) is among the largest and longest-living palms in the world. When it finally blooms, it releases a giant floral plume that can tower above its 30-meter-tall (98-foot) trunk, showcasing a dramatic display of up to 25 million blossoms.

If pollinated, the flowers produce fruits that can grow into new palms — but only once. After blooming, the tree dies, having spent all its stored energy in the final act of reproduction.

The blooming palms can also be seen in Rio’s Botanical Garden, where they were planted at the same time. Because the trees share the same origin, climate exposure, and photoperiod (length of daylight), they are flowering in near-perfect synchronicity.

“This palm species gives us a reflection on temporality, because it has roughly the same lifespan as a human being,” said Aline Saavedra, a biologist at Rio de Janeiro State University. “Marx also wanted to convey a poetic perspective.”

Marx, known for fusing modernist architecture with Brazil’s natural landscapes, brought the talipot palms to Rio in the 1960s as part of his vision for creating living, evolving art. His work in Flamengo Park, which overlooks Guanabara Bay and the iconic Sugarloaf Mountain, remains one of his most celebrated public spaces.

Though the talipot is not native to Brazil, Saavedra explained that it is not considered invasive because of its slow growth and regulated planting. Brazil’s environmental laws restrict the importation of non-native species, but these palms were introduced decades ago under different regulations.

The current bloom — a once-in-a-lifetime event for each individual tree — is a reminder of nature’s rhythm and resilience. And for many visitors, it's also a spark of wonder.

“The interest this phenomenon has generated is positive,” said Saavedra. “It could encourage a sense of belonging, and of preserving rather than destroying the environment.”

Decades-Old Palm Trees In Rio De Janeiro Bloom For First And Only Time

Americans donated an estimated $4 billion to nonprofits on GivingTuesday 2025, a significant jump from the $3.6 billion given in 2024, according to figures released by the GivingTuesday nonprofit. It marks a year-over-year increase of more than 11%, or 8.1% when adjusted for inflation.

The spike in generosity didn’t stop at financial contributions. This year’s GivingTuesday, which fell on December 2, also saw 11.1 million Americans volunteer their time, up from 9.2 million in 2024.

“Generosity is a really powerful way to feel connected,” said Woodrow Rosenbaum, GivingTuesday’s chief data officer. “When people see need, they want to do something about it — and GivingTuesday gives them a moment to do that in celebration rather than crisis.”

GivingTuesday began in 2012 as a social media initiative from New York’s 92nd Street Y. Since then, it has grown into a global philanthropic movement and independent nonprofit. The organization estimates giving and volunteer rates through data collected from platforms, payment processors, and nonprofit software providers.

While large corporate and foundation gifts are excluded from GivingTuesday’s total, this year’s numbers still reflect a groundswell in individual giving — which is the focus of the initiative. One high-profile donation, a $6.25 billion pledge from Michael and Susan Dell, was not counted in the GivingTuesday tally. That gift is earmarked for launching new federal “Trump accounts,” a children’s investment program backed by the U.S. Treasury and passed as part of the summer’s tax and spending legislation.

The Dell donation — aimed at providing $250 to 25 million children under age 10 — was hailed by President Donald Trump at a White House event on Tuesday as “one of the most generous acts in the history of our country.”

Rosenbaum said many Americans are also turning to non-monetary ways of giving, such as helping neighbors or participating in mutual aid efforts. “Volunteering is a way you can increase your impact without it costing you money,” he said.

The surge in giving offers a hopeful signal as nonprofits enter the final month of the year, traditionally the most important for fundraising.

“We’re in a moment of abundance,” Rosenbaum added. “People are ready and willing to help — and that’s something nonprofit and community groups should feel encouraged by.”

Americans Gave $4 Billion on GivingTuesday 2025, Marking a Surge in Generosity

When Andrew Cowell moved to Colorado in 1995 to teach languages at the University of Colorado Boulder, he brought with him more than just academic credentials. He had already studied Hawaiian and felt a personal responsibility to learn about the Indigenous language of his new home — Arapaho.

At the time, the Northern Arapaho people still had hundreds of fluent speakers. Today, fewer than 100 remain — all over the age of 70.

“The Arapaho people in Wyoming and Colorado believe their language can still survive,” Cowell writes. “And so do I.”

For decades, Cowell has been documenting the Arapaho language and building what may now be its most extensive digital archive: over 100,000 sentences of natural speech, all transcribed, translated, and analyzed. From this, he’s helped build an online dictionary with 25,000 entries and an online learning platform. These aren’t just data dumps — they’re the backbone of a new curriculum, built for a language at risk of disappearing.

From documentation to revitalization

Like many Native American languages, Arapaho has been declining for generations. Boarding schools once suppressed it, and later, economic pressures nudged families toward English. Many parents stopped speaking Arapaho at home, convinced that English would give their children a better future.

But now, the tide is slowly turning. Communities across North America are working to reclaim their ancestral languages, with some — like Mohawk, Cherokee, and Blackfoot — seeing notable gains. Arapaho learners are part of that wave.

Cowell’s database has proven vital not just for preservation, but for teaching. “Adult learners can watch the videos along with the Arapaho transcriptions, English translations, or both,” he says. But for younger students, natural conversation is too complex without structured learning. That’s where graded curricula come in.

Arapaho, like many Indigenous languages, builds long words by stacking multiple bits of meaning — prefixes, suffixes, and base words. One word can pack in what would take an entire sentence in English. For example: niibeetwonwoteekoohunoo means “I want to go and drive to town.”

Cowell’s system breaks those complex words down into manageable chunks, creating a progressive, 44-stage learning path. Using data from the massive database, he and his team identified the most frequent words, stems, prefixes, and suffixes — and tailored vocabulary lists and grammar goals for each grade level.

That structure is now being piloted at Wyoming Indian Elementary School, where dual-language classrooms are introducing a new generation of students to Arapaho — not just as heritage, but as a living language.

Why AI can’t do it alone

While Cowell uses technology extensively, he’s quick to point out its limits. Large language models like those behind AI systems rely on billions of words for training — far more than exist for any Native language. Beyond that, many Indigenous communities are cautious about how their data and cultural knowledge are used, especially by outside institutions or algorithms.

“Only Native people can save their languages,” Cowell says. “By choosing to learn and speak them.”

Still, the tools he’s helped create are powerful — not because they replace the human side of language learning, but because they support it. His years of in-person learning with fluent speakers helped him see where learners struggle, and how to adapt the curriculum.

He also emphasizes that trust and relationships matter. “Success in helping revitalize Native languages depends on researchers building long-term relationships with Native peoples and, ideally, speaking Native languages,” he writes.

After decades of work, the effort to save Arapaho is gaining momentum. The tools exist. The curriculum is in motion. And the hope is simple: that children will once again grow up hearing and speaking a language that came close to vanishing — and might still find its way back.

Arapaho Isn’t Gone Yet: How a Professor Is Using Tech to Help Save This Indigenous Language

For 35 years, American zoologist Laurie Marker has been quietly building a frozen insurance policy for cheetahs — a sperm bank deep in Namibia that she hopes the world never has to use.

Inside liquid nitrogen tanks at the Cheetah Conservation Fund near Otjiwarongo, specimens from around 400 cheetahs are stored at ultralow temperatures. Marker calls it a “frozen zoo” — a genetic archive for a species hurtling toward an uncertain future.

“You don’t do anything with it until it’s needed,” Marker told the Associated Press. “And we never want to get to that point.”

But that point may not be far off.

Less than 7,000 cheetahs remain in the wild, scattered across roughly 33 fragmented populations — most of them with fewer than 100 individuals. That makes cheetahs about as rare as the critically endangered black rhino. Over the last 50 years, cheetahs have lost 90% of their historic range and 80% of their population.

The threats are familiar: habitat loss, human-wildlife conflict, and illegal wildlife trafficking. But for cheetahs, another issue looms — a dangerously shallow gene pool.

Born to run, struggling to breed

Cheetahs can hit 112 km/h (70 mph) in short bursts, but they’re far less efficient when it comes to reproduction. Around 70–80% of male cheetah sperm is considered abnormal, and low genetic diversity further complicates breeding.

Scientists believe cheetahs barely survived the last ice age, around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, which may have permanently reduced their genetic variety.

“We will try to bank every animal we possibly can,” Marker said. “Every cheetah is actually a unique mix of a very small number of genes.”

Samples are collected opportunistically — often from injured or captured cheetahs brought in by farmers, who frequently see the animals as threats to livestock. The team also collects from dead cheetahs when possible.

Namibian law currently forbids artificial breeding of wild animals in captivity, so Marker's lab isn’t using the samples yet. But the goal is clear: to give conservationists one more option, should the wild population collapse.

A growing conservation tool

Wildlife sperm banks aren’t new. They’ve been established for elephants, rhinos, birds, antelope, and other big cats. But few species illustrate their importance more starkly than the northern white rhino.

With just two females left, the species is functionally extinct. The only chance of revival lies in frozen sperm and experimental embryo transfers into southern white rhino surrogates. So far, the attempts have failed, but the work continues.

Elsewhere, there have been success stories. The black-footed ferret — once down to a single wild population in Wyoming — was brought back from the brink using reproductive technologies.

Marker knows that the 1,800 cheetahs in zoos could serve as a fallback if the wild population crashes. But cheetahs don’t breed well in captivity. That’s where the sperm bank could come in.

Hope in a tank

Cheetah sperm, stored in the lab’s nitrogen tanks, may one day be used to fertilize eggs and implant embryos in surrogates — assuming the legal and logistical frameworks evolve.

“Without it, we’re not going to have much of a chance,” Marker said.

As conservationists mark World Cheetah Day, the numbers are grim, but Marker remains committed. The frozen zoo is quiet, invisible to the public, but it’s a monument to decades of foresight — and a bet that science might still be able to outpace extinction.

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