A sperm bank for cheetahs might one day save the fastest land animal

A file photo of a cheetah in the Maasai Mara in Kenya. There are fewer than 7,000 cheetahs left in the wild today. — BEN CURTIS/AP

For 35 years, American zoologist Laurie Marker has been collecting and storing specimens in a cheetah sperm bank in Namibia, hoping conservationists never have to use them.

But she worries that the world’s fastest land animal might be on the brink of extinction one day and need artificial reproduction to save it.