Germplasm cryobanking in Felids

One of the global challenges that we are called to face in this millennium is the preservation of biodiversity. As declared by the United Nations, 2011-2020 is the decade of biodiversity: “It is a celebration of life on Earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives. The world is invited to take action to safeguard the variety of life on Earth….” We all are responsible of preserving the environment, maintaining habitats and controlling pollution, but preserving germplasm is also an option for safeguarding animal biodiversity. Among Felids, the only not endangered species is the domestic cat (Felis catus), and its germplasm (e.g. spermatozoa, oocytes, and gonadal tissues) gives us the opportunity to experiment innovative methods and protocols of cryostorage that can be then applied to rare and endangered individuals whose germplasm is not as available as that of cats. Banking of gametes is the most common approach, but new techniques of conservation and recent advances in gonadal tissue cryopreservation can widen the options available to protect high value genotypes and to preserve and extend fertility of rare species, represented by a scarce number of individuals.