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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

We instinctively see scientific meddling with plants as dangerous. In  
this article, we see science meddling, but not changing, animals.  
Instead, SVF is preserving them for a time when they may become  
necessary or at least more desired than now.

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Rare Breeds, Frozen in Time
By BARRY ESTABROOK
Published: January 5, 2010

IT didn’t take long for Chip, a Tennessee fainting goat sporting a  
luxuriant Vandyke beard and an impressive pair of curlicue horns, to  
live up to his breed’s name. When Peter Borden, accompanied by a  
stranger, entered the immaculate stable that Chip calls home, the goat  
pressed his velvety nose through the bars of his stall, begging for a  
scratch. But at the visitor’s approach, Chip apparently had second  
thoughts. His left foreleg stiffened, his brown eyes went glassy and  
he began to list to one side.
“There he goes,” said Mr. Borden, the executive director of the SVF  
Foundation, a heritage livestock preservation facility here. The guest  
turned away, and Chip quickly recovered, his dignity intact. . . .

For all their efficiency and high output, modern livestock breeds have  
become a weak, inbred bunch, Dr. Saperstein said. Fifty years ago  
there were a half-dozen popular dairy breeds in this country. But  
today, according to Lindsey Worden of Holstein Association USA, an  
organization representing farmers and breeders, the country’s 8.6  
million Holstein cows make up 93 percent of America’s dairy herd.  
Fewer than 20 champion bulls are responsible for half the genes in  
today’s Holsteins.
As an example of how vulnerable our milk supply is, Dr. Saperstein  
points to a heat wave in California in 2006 in which some 16,500  
Holsteins died, despite farmers’ efforts to save them with cooling  
mists of water and fans. . . .

Before SVF, the preservation of heritage livestock was through natural  
reproduction and largely the purview of dedicated amateur and  
professional breeders and organizations like the American Livestock  
Breeds Conservancy and Slow Food USA, as well as organizations  
promoting specific varieties. “On-the-hoof conservation is important,”  
Mr. Borden said. “But used in conjunction with it, cryopreservation is  
a great long-term solution.”

Full article at:
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/dining/06frozen.html