Frankenstein's Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech's Brave New Beasts (29 page)

To clone Jazz
: The details of Jazz’s cloning, and the birth of his clone, are from Gomez et al., “Birth of African Wildcat Cloned Kittens”; Dresser, discussion, March 2011.

“[I]s a cloned animal…”
: David Ehrenfeld, “Transgenics and Vertebrate Cloning as Tools for Species Conservation,”
Conservation Biology
20, no. 3 (2006): 723–32.

That November, Miles and Otis … various zoos
: “African Wildcat Clone Family Tree,” Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species, downloaded April 24, 2012,
www.flickr.com/photos/audubonimages/3910008886/in/set-72157624320538361/
; Dresser, discussions, November 2009 and April 2012.

After these successes, the ACRES researchers … surrogate mothers
: Betsy Dresser, e-mail message to author, April 23, 2012.

A European team made
: Pasqualino Loi et al., “Genetic Rescue of an Endangered Mammal by Cross-species Nuclear Transfer Using Post-mortem Somatic Cells,”
Nature Biotechnology
19 (October 2001): 962–64.

Korean researchers cloned an endangered
: Min Kyu Kim et al., “Endangered Wolves Cloned from Adult Somatic Cells,”
Cloning and Stem Cells
9, no. 1 (2007): 130–37; H. J. Oh et al., “Cloning Endangered Gray Wolves (
Canis lupus
) from Somatic Cells Collected Postmortem,”
Theriogenology
70, no. 4 (2008): 638–47; Kim Tong-hyung, “Endangered Jeju Cattle Cloned,”
Korea Times
, August 31, 2009,
www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2012/03/129_51015.html
.

In 2012, scientists in India
: Aijaz Hussain, “Kashmir Scientists Clone Rare Cashmere Goat,” Associated Press, March 15, 2012.

After making Noah
: Constance Holden, “Banteng Cloned,”
Science
(April 8, 2003):
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2003/04/08-01.html
; “Cloned Endangered Species Euthanized,” UPI, April 8, 2003,
www.upi.com/Science_News/2003/04/08/Cloned-endangered-species-euthanized/UPI-42791049838441/
.

In Dresser’s mind, the first task
: Dresser, discussions, November 2009 and April 2012.

But researchers couldn’t just
: Information about what’s required to introduce captive-born animals into the wild is from Dresser, discussions, November 2009 and April 2012; International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
, IUCN Guidelines for Re-introductions
(Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, 1998).

from 11 to 53 percent
: K. R. Jule et al., “The Effects of Captive Experience in Reintroduction Survival in Carnivores: A Review and Analysis,”
Biological Conservation
141, no. 2 (2008): 355–63.

black-footed ferrets
: J. Belant et al., “
Mustela nigripes
,”
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
2011.2,
www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/14020/0
.

golden lion tamarins
: M. C. M. Kierulff et al., “
Leontopithecus rosalia
,” in
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
2011.2,
www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/11506/0
.

Arabian oryx
: IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group 2011, “
Oryx leucoryx
,” in
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
2011.2,
www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/15569/0
.

For example, some plants … of vegetation
: James A. Estes et al., “Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth,”
Science
333 (July 15, 2011): 301–306; C. N. Johnson, “Ecological Consequences of Late Quaternary Extinctions of Megafauna,”
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
276 (2009): 2509–19.

Today, it’s a desolate place … these grasslands
: Sergey A. Zimov, “Pleistocene Park: Return of the Mammoth’s Ecosystem,”
Science
308 (May 6, 2005): 796–98.

“In the winter, the animals…”
: Ibid.

Zimov is trying … shape the landscape
: Ibid.; see also “Pleistocene Park,” Pleistocene Park,
www.pleistocenepark.ru/en/
.

There are more radical proposals
: Josh Donlan, “Re-wilding North America,”
Nature
436 (August 18, 2005): 913–14; C. Josh Donlan et al., “Pleistocene Rewilding: An Optimistic Agenda for Twenty-First Century Conservation,”
The American Naturalist
168, no. 5 (2006): 660–81.

Take the once-abundant gray wolf … thrive together
: William J. Ripple and Robert L. Beschta, “Trophic Cascades in Yellowstone: The First 15 Years After Wolf Reintroduction,”
Biological Conservation
145 (2012): 205–13; William J. Ripple and Robert L. Beschta, “Wolf Reintroduction, Predation Risk, and Cottonwood Recovery in Yellowstone National Park,”
Forest Ecology and Management
184 (2003): 299–313.

such as the cheetah … of inbreeding
: Marilyn Menotti-Raymond and Stephen J. O’Brien, “Dating the Genetic Bottleneck of the African Cheetah,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
90 (April 1993): 3172–76; S. Durant et al., “
Acinonyx jubatus
,” in
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
2011.2,
www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/219/0
.

but we could use the technology
: How cloning could help maintain genetic diversity is from Dresser, discussions, November 2009 and March 2011; Lanza et al., “Cloning Noah’s Ark”; Holt et al., “Wildlife Conservation and Reproductive Cloning”; and Ryder, “Cloning Advances and Challenges for Conservation.”

“That is years of science…”
: Dresser, discussion, December 2010.

This is the Frozen Zoo … lions, tigers, and bears
: “Frozen Zoo,” Audubon Nature Institute, accessed December 6, 2010,
www.auduboninstitute.org/saving-species/frozen-zoo
.

“We should be systematically sampling…”
: Kraemer, discussion, October 2009.

eighteen institutions in eight countries
: “Consortium,” Frozen Ark Project, accessed April 9, 2012,
www.frozenark.org/consortium
.

48,000 DNA samples from more than 5,500 species
: “Animals in the Ark,” Frozen Ark Project, accessed April 9, 2012,
www.frozenark.org/animals-ark
.

10,000 species by 2015
: “What We Need,” Frozen Ark Project, accessed April 9, 2012,
www.frozenark.org/what-we-need
.

For example, the San Diego Zoo’s
: Andrea Johnson, “Preserving Hawaiian Bird Cell Lines,” San Diego Zoo Global, November 7, 2008,
http://blog.sandiegozooglobal.org/2008/11/07/preserving-hawaiian-bird-cell-lines/
; BirdLife International 2009, “
Melamprosops phaeosoma
,” in
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
2011.2,
www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/106008926/0
; Mark Szotek, “Tales from a Frozen Zoo,”
Mongabay.com
, February 2, 2010,
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0202-szotek_frozen_zoo.html
.

By 1999, there was only one … in other young clones
: Celia’s demise, and subsequent cloning, are detailed in J. Folch et al., “First Birth of an Animal from an Extinct Subspecies (
Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica
) by Cloning,”
Theriogenology
71 (2009): 1026–34; Damiani et al., “Cloning Endangered and Extinct Species”; Richard Gray and Roger Dobson, “Extinct Ibex Is Resurrected by Cloning,”
Telegraph
, January 31, 2009,
www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/4409958/Extinct-ibex-is-resurrected-by-cloning.html
.

Australian researchers want to revive
: Deborah Smith, “Tassie Tiger Cloning ‘Pie-in-the-Sky Science,’”
Sydney Morning Herald,
February 17, 2005,
www.smh.com.au/news/science/tassie-tiger-cloning-pieinthesky-science/2005/02/16/1108500157295.html
; Daniel Dasey, “Researchers Revive Plan to Clone the Tassie Tiger,”
Sydney Morning Herald
, May 15, 2005,
www.smh.com.au/news/Science/Clone-again/2005/05/14/1116024405941.html
; “The Thylacine: A Case Study,” Biotechnology Online, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, accessed April 20, 2012,
www.biotechnologyonline.gov.au/enviro/thylacine.html
.

Like a kangaroo … Tasmanian tiger
: “
Thylacinus cynocephalus
—Thylacine,” Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Commonwealth of Australia, accessed April 21, 2012,
www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat//files/04/89/23/f048923/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=342
.

The mammal has been extinct
: Andrew J. Pask et al., “Resurrection of DNA Function
In Vivo
from an Extinct Genome,”
PLoS One
3, no. 5 (2008): e2240.

In 2008, one team of scientists
: Ibid.; Katherine Sanderson, “Tasmanian Tiger Gene Lives Again,”
Nature
(May 20, 2008):
www.nature.com/news/2008/080520/full/news.2008.841.html
.

One dream is to resurrect
: Henry Nicholls, “The Legacy of Lonesome George,”
Nature
, July 18, 2012,
www.nature.com/news/the-legacy-of-lonesome-george-1.11017
.

“[W]e have restored to life…”
: Pask et al., “Resurrection of DNA Function.”

The following year, a different group
: Webb Miller et al., “The Mitochondrial Genome Sequence of the Tasmanian Tiger (
Thylacinus cynocephalus
),”
Genome Research
19, no. 2 (2009): 213–20.

wombats and wallabies
: “
Thylacinus cynocephalus
,” Department of Sustainability.

Russian, Japanese, and Korean
: Shingo Ito, “Researchers Aim to Resurrect Mammoth in Five Years,” AFP, January 17, 2011; “S. Korean, Russian Scientists Bid to Clone Mammoth,” AFP, March 12, 2012; Jaeyeon Woo, “Will Resurrecting a Mammoth Be Possible?”
Wall Street Journal
, March 13, 2012,
http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2012/03/13/will-be-resurrecting-a-mammoth-possible/
.

During his 2006 trial
: Reuters, “Korean Scientist Paid Russia Mafia for Mammoth,”
NBCNEWS.com
, October 24, 2006,
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15399222/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/korea-scientist-paid-russia-mafia-mammoth/#.UCrCPkTTMgq
.

That will be a difficult task
: Henry Nicholls, “Let’s Make a Mammoth,”
Nature
456 (November 20, 2008): 311.

the DNA in even the best
: Evgeny I. Rogaev et al., “Complete Mitochondrial Genome and Phylogeny of Pleistocene Mammoth
Mammuthus primigenius
,”
PLoS Biology
4, no. 3 (2006): e73.

The other option
: Nicholls, “Let’s Make a Mammoth.”

Among other obstacles
: Ibid., 312.

famed paleontologist Jack Horner
: Jack Horner and James Gorman, “Dinosaur Resurrection,”
Discover
, April 2009, 50–53. See also Jack Horner and James Gorman,
How to Build a Dinosaur
(New York: Penguin, 2009).