Advancements and Challenges in Artificial Insemination Techniques for Wild Ruminant Conservation : A review

Abstract

Biodiversity is increasingly threatened by intensive agriculture, environmental pollution, climate change, and habitat loss, and many mammal species, including ruminants, have disappeared or are threatened with extinction. Therefore, reproductive biotechnologies represent an important alternative for the conservation of endangered species, being fixed-time artificial insemination (FTAI) the most widely used method, which has been extrapolated from livestock to wild ruminants. The main benefit of artificial insemination is the maintenance of the genetic diversity of populations through the preservation and use of semen from genetically valuable individuals. Variables, such as hormones and semen condition, can modify the efficiency of FTAI in domestic and wild animals. The aim of this review was to evaluate the different protocols and variations that have been reported in FTAI applied to different species of wild ruminants.