Wildcat Clones

The London Telegraph reported today that cloned wildcats have bred naturally and produced kittens. Unfortunately, the Telegraph article doesn't have any pictures.

Their family tree is a little complicated, though. Nancy the African wildcat was the original female, who was cloned, producing Madge and Caty. On the male side, Jazz the African wildcat "was born as the result of the transfer of cryopreserved ("frozen") embryos to a domestic cat." But Jazz wasn't the father of Madge and Caty's kittens. The father was Ditteaux, the clone of Jazz. Between Madge and Caty, they had eight healthy kittens.

The scientists who did this are thrilled, not only because they've done something new, but especially because this gives them an additional method of preserving endangered species.

"We couldn't be happier with these births," said Prof Betsy Dresser, director of the Audubon Centre for Research of Endangered Species.

"By improving the cloning process and then encouraging cloned animals to breed and make babies we can revive the genes of individuals who might not be reproductively viable otherwise, and we can save genes from animals in the wild."

Prof Dresser said skin samples of a long-dead but genetically valuable animal, if properly preserved, could be cloned to create a genetic match of the animal.

Those genes could then be introduced back into the population through natural breeding, keeping the species viable and increasing their numbers. "The goal is to use whatever tools we can to help boost these populations," she said.

The critics referenced in the article didn't object on any moral ground. Their objection was that the real problem is the loss of habitat.

And while I agree that the loss of habitat can be a limiting factor on an animal population, when habitat can be recovered, there's going to be a need for more animals to live there.

In doing a gut-check on this article, I don't have any problem with it. If it were people they were talking about, I'd be extremely upset. But endangered species? They have my blessing. Do what it takes to preserve what we can.

Maybe they can even bring back the dodo bird...