London - The process costs tens of thousands of pounds – but wealthy animal lovers are turning to cloning in the hope of continuing with the ‘same’ pet if one dies.
However, according to the scientist who created Dolly the sheep, the technique will not bring the same beloved animal back.
Professor Sir Ian Wilmut warned those thinking of spending £60,000 (R 116,3712.20) on the process that the copy will not necessarily look or even act like the original animal, despite being the same genetically.
A firm in South Korea has cloned hundreds of pet dogs using the technique Sir Ian employed to make Dolly, a genetic copy of an existing sheep. But Sir Ian said: ‘I have a dog, and if we had a clone which had been brought up under different circumstances, its personality would be different.’
Quirks of development mean that distinctive physical traits such as coat colouring or patterning are also likely to vary.
This means, Sir Ian said, that anyone considering cloning would do just as well buying another dog that looks like their pet.
Critics of pet cloning have pointed out that charity shelters are full of abandoned animals in need of loving homes.
Sir Ian added that he thinks a Jurassic Park-type scenario, in which cloning brings long-dead species back to life, is ‘extremely unlikely’.
But he believes tissue from pandas, elephants, lions, tigers and other endangered animals should be frozen. The samples could be thawed out and cloned in the future, to prevent the creatures from becoming extinct.
Daily Mail