Animal Cloning 

   

    How much would you be willing to pay to clone your pet?  In 2008, Florida multimillionaires, Edgar and Nina Otto paid $155,000 to clone their deceased Labrador, Sir Lancelot. Lancelot had died of cancer earlier that year at age eleven.  Although his owners were devastated, they found hope in the fact that their beloved dog could be cloned.  Years earlier, they had DNA samples taken from Lancelot just in case pet cloning ever became a reality.  Turns out they were right. [9.1]

 

   In 2009, Lancelot’s clone, “Lancy”, was born thanks to the work of two biotech companies: BioArts, in San Francisco, and Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, in South Korea.  Right away, the Otto’s could tell that Lancy was special. He shared many of the same mannerisms and personality traits as his clone.  Lancy often crosses his paws and enjoys taking long dips in the family pool-just like Sir Lancelot used to. It wasn’t until after the cloning of Lancy, that many other dog owners started thinking about cloning their own pets. Despite still lingering criticism, it has become a huge business [9.3].  

 

  The idea of cloning pets was put to the test when, CC, the world’s first domestic pet  was born. The clone of Rainbow, a common calico cat, CC was born at Texas A&M’s Veterinary College in 2001.  Although scientists had their doubts, CC is still going strong today, more than ten years later. CC’s story, like Lancy’s, is a successful one. Unfortunately, not all turn out that way [9.2].   

     

   Pet cloning has a very low success rate, about 1 to 2 percent, a statistics that explains why the industry faces so much controversy.  Many animal rights activists say it is downright cruel.  Many embryos are destroyed in the initial process-embryos that could have produced life.  Surrogate mothers also face many complications often experiencing difficult pregnancies and miscarriages.  Offspring that does survive faces a difficult road-one that is often filled with disease, illness, and ultimately, premature death.  Animal shelters are also worried about the effects cloning will have in the future.  This new technology could potentially increase already high populations of dogs and cats.  Sadly, this will increase the numbers of pets euthanized each year [9.4].  Although pet cloning defiantly has some positives, it could also have some devastating consequences for the animals we love.