Conservation and utilization
of genetic resource of local breeds is one of research
missions in animal sciences as part of continued agriculture.
There are four major tasks in the establishment of animal
germplasm conservations; collection, maintenance,
evaluation,and utilization. Germplasm may be defined as the
total genetic diversity of a species. Continued increases in
animal production require improved varieties, and animal
improvement is certainly dependent upon genetic diversity.
Germplasm preservations maintain portions of this diversity
to meet the needs of the animal breeders and producers,
sometimes even to serve our society from a culture aspect.
The local breeds
usually has a smaller body size, slower growth rate and less
lean meat content but had one or more adapting
characteristics to their living environment in the past, such
as prolificacy of Taoyuan pig, heat tolerance of yellow
cattle, disease-resistance of water buffalo, twinning of
black goat, prolific laying ability of Tsaiya duck, roughage
tolerance of Chinese goose, meat flavor of country chicken,
and early maturity of miniature pig. They have lived on the
same piece of earth with us for many years but they need to
face the fate of elimination from the market-place due to
less production values and interbred with other exotic
varieties frequently. Taiwan Livestock Research Institute,
included her animal propagation stations snd research
ststions together with universities' Animal Science
Department under financial support in part from the Council
of Agriculture, Republic of China, have conducted the
nation-wise project of animal germplasm conservation program
to save these native animals since 1987.
Due to the
limitation of raising facilities and finance support,
cryopreservation of semen and embryo from native breeds are
essential to maintain the variance of genetic resources. Thus
the freezing techniques for semen of yellow cattle, black
goat, pigs, country chinken, Tsaiya ducks and Chinese geese
were developed and applied currently in field test to check
the survivability of thawed sperm. Embryos of yellow cattle,
black goat and Taoyuan pig were frozen in the liquid nitrogen
condition and had been examined their mortalities after
thawing and transfer into surrogate mothers. Although the
transfer of forzen embryo was not success in several trails,
but with direct transfer of fresh embryos into surrogates
several Lanyu miniature piglets and one black goat lamb were
born alive in 1991.
Animal resources of
Taiwan are bounteous and are preserving for the improvement
of exotic breeds in term of production performance and
efficiency. Conservation and integration of germplasm for new
variants should be a major mission of governmemtal research
institutes in order to utilize gene pool adequately.
We would like to
acknowlege the scholarly efforts of our contributors, who
have made the germplasm program stimulating and rewarding by
providing timely collections and beautiful pictures. Our
appreciation also go to the Animal Industry Department,
Council of Agriculture, and Taiwan Provincial Government's
Department of Agriculture and Forestry for their supports.
Ming-Che
Wu
Hsiu-Luan Chang
Chein
Tai
