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Infertile patients cannot afford to wait for treatment while their eggs get older.

Dr. Sherman Silber, Infertility Center of St. Louis, is offering video consultations for patients who need to plan now for their treatment while stay-at-home orders are in place. He is talking to and evaluating patients in their home to comply with social distancing measures.

Dr. Silber is discovering that patients actually prefer this method of telemedicine consultation over the conventional office visit. Patients have conveyed that “it is so much more convenient and less stressful” to have a telemedicine personal consultation than to take a day off from work to travel to the doctor’s office and sit with other nervous patients in the waiting room.

The COVID-19 pandemic is thus changing much of the way we will do things in the future, and for the better. “Our patients are surprisingly much happier with this approach. Of course, at some point we need to perform hands on treatment. But with this new manner of seeing patients, we can come to the right diagnosis and treatment plan for most patients more efficiently, quickly, and painlessly, with no loss of personal one-on-one communication.” This is a very welcome new era of telemedicine that has been forced on us by the current difficult times.

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The Infertility Center of St. Louis
The Infertility Center of St. Louis
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Why Vasectomize an Endangered Wolf? Reversible Fertility for Genetic Diversity

This explainer answers a counterintuitive question: why would an endangered Mexican wolf be vasectomized—and then need a reversal? In modern zoos and conservation centers, space is limited and breeding is tightly managed under Species Survival Plans (SSPs). To prevent overcrowding and preserve genetic diversity, facilities use contraception. But two constraints are critical: it must be reversible, and it must not alter natural behavior. Hormonal methods can change behavior; permanent sterilization destroys future options. That’s why vasectomy—when performed with microsurgical techniques that are later reversible—has become a preferred tool.

Over time, an individual’s genetic value can change dramatically. A wolf with ample genetic representation today may become critically underrepresented a decade later due to deaths, failed litters, or shifting pedigrees. When that happens, SSPs may reclassify the animal as high-priority for breeding. If he was previously vasectomized, a precise vasectomy reversal is required.

The video follows a reversal on an endangered Mexican wolf at an East Coast canine rehabilitation center. Conditions are often far from hospital-grade: basic microscopes, field anesthesia after darting, and makeshift surgical spaces—even outdoors. Despite these challenges, experienced microsurgeons can restore patency on both vas deferens and return fertility to normal. The same human-proven techniques (refined across 10,000+ vasectomy reversals at the St. Louis center) are applied to wildlife; zoos require that level of track record before allowing surgery on such valuable animals.

The broader message reframes the role of zoos. Beyond public education, their central mission is now species preservation—maintaining viable, behaviorally normal, genetically diverse populations as wild habitats shrink and persecution continues. Reversible, behavior-sparing contraception, paired with expert reversals when genetics demand it, helps ensure that endangered wolves—and many other species—retain real prospects for survival.