This is just a quick note to air my views on the cloning of wild cats using the eggs of a domestic cat and a domestic cat surrogate mother. I respect the views of others.
Mature egg cells are removed from a domestic cat in a surgical operation. Then genetic material from the egg cell is merged with a skin cell from a wildcat.
Embryos start to grow which are inserted into the womb of a surrogate mother cat, which is a domestic cat. The embryos can be deep frozen as well in liquid nitrogen.
In outline, that is the process. I am guessing that the surrogate domestic cat is a different cat to the domestic cat that provided the eggs.
Apparently this process has resulted in the successful cloning of three African wildcats who are living in an animal sanctuary somewhere. I think it is in New Orleans, USA. But someone will have to confirm that.
Cloning has often failed miserably. New born animals have lived for short periods only. Scientists don’t really know what they are doing. They are basically experimenting with the lives of animals.
What personally galls me a lot is the fact that it would be far more sensible if people stopped killing wild cats in the first place. We would not need to do these ghastly experiments then. People kill wild cats in many different ways. The most common is to destroy the places where they live or kill the prey they eat or just kill them for their fur.
And if people go on killing wild cats or prevent them from living by destroying their habitat, what will happen to any cloned cats that survive. Are they going to be put into the wild to be killed or will they spend their lives in cages? I seems like a lose-lose situation for the cat and a bit of fun for the human.
Far more work needs to be done to protect wild cats and other wild life. The big companies who are mining vast areas of Africa and logging forests should be under an obligation to ensure that the damage they inflict on the landscape should not have a damaging effect on the population numbers of wild cats. That is a pipe dream.
Yet it makes sense. Business should be responsible and sustainable. The logging and mining companies cannot be sustainable if they are simply using up parts of virgin landscape ad infinitum. The natural resources are limited.
Conclusion
Cloning wild cats is morally unjustifiable as long as we hurt animals in the process while failing to do enough to preserve the wild cat species that were created naturally.
They are African Black Footed Cats. It would be nice if we could get poachers to stop killing off our beautiful cats. The poaching breaks my heart. But that isn’t the only problem. The cats are getting inbred. There will be a time, possibly in our lifetime, when no more Siberian Tigers will exist outside of zoos. It’s not right. There a myriad of inbreeding issues all over Africa.
While I wholeheartedly recognize your right to believe as you wish, I must respectively disagree on the cloning. The third kitten, Crystal may have been born from a domestic mother, but she acts just like any other wild cat when approached by humans. Should we let these breeds die off completely? (heavy sigh)
I used to be against it, until I saw Crystal. I was. As I watched that first video of her I saw she is every bit a African Black-footed cat. More importantly, she is s CHANCE for new DNA to be introduced into the Africa Black-footed Cat gene pool! She could help save the wild population. I think she is a miracle of science.
I know you love cats as much as I do. I also know that you can’t stand that we’re going to lose more and more species of cats as the years go by. That is why I feel that any chance at survival is better than certain extinction.
Thank you
Great comment – I agree totally, especially because now we have the technology to do everything without animals so there is no more excuse. Infact we even have the know how and technology to stop being so destructive so its a shame on humanity that we choose to be lazy and and follow the money trail without concern for anyone or anything outside of our own lifetimes.
I completely agree with you Rudolph. At the current rate of human population growth I see no future for wildlife including wild cats except as you say: clones, freaks maybe in cages or in entertainment parks to amuse the people. We are heading towards a world of artificiality totally dominated by the rapacious human who consumes everything and who believes he owns the planet and everything on it. And you know what. I hate it.
Michael, i personally predict that “CLONING” wild species and maintaining them in artificial zoology parks is the future of all wild forest animals in most parts of the globe. Human population is increasing at an alarming rate and in my country India, i see a bleak future for the tiger and most big game as forests give way to farms and buildings.Rhinos are disappearing at the rate of one a day in South Africa game reserves due to poaching, a totally unsustainable murder of these beasts.Rhino experts have predicted 2014 as a deadline to rhino extinction in South Africa if the present rate of poaching is not stopped.In the Arctic regions, melting of polar ice-caps is causing physiological changes in the Polar bears resulting in them becoming sterile.It would take a book to mention the rapid rate of extinction in progress on planet Earth due to us humans colonizing entire Planet Earth and playing God to other animal species.Hope the doomsayers of animal extinction are proved wrong and extinction is reversed by the present and future generations.Otherwise, our generation could be the last to have seen some of the common icon animals in their natural environment.
You’re a fighter and a great advocate for animals. I completely agree with you. When I write articles I have to modify what I say a bit sometimes. You have got the point I made. On the one hand we are killing cats that God created and on the other hand we are playing God in creating replacements. It is just bizarre to me.
Hi Michael,
By what you’ve said, I’m guessing that it’s pointless (as well as cruel to the parties involved in the cloning) since the population became endangered due to mining and deforestation.
You rightly mentioned that the fixed amount of resources are diminishing and will eventually deplete. This will result in more wasteland or at least land that can’t protect or support the wild cats.
And right, where will they put this population that they’ve “saved” when their habitat has already been destroyed and more habitat is in the process of being destroyed?
I am against cloning and all animal experimentation. There is never a justification for any of it. In fact, I’m against using animals for anything at all – police dogs, military dogs, zoo animals, circus animals, show cats, for riding, for plowing fields, etc…It’s flat out wrong and evil.
=^-^= Hairless Cat Girl =^-^=