Artificial Selection: Creating the Perfect Pet
Throughout history, humans have used animals as companions and partners. And lets face it, from dog shows to cat sweaters, people are crazy in love with their pets. But what really makes the best pet? A purebred, a mutt, or a miracle of modern science?
Take dogs– through selective breeding people have created a wide variety of traits, sizes, and colors. But since selective breeding requires breeding populations from limited numbers of dogs (inbreeding), some breeds not only have distinct colors and traits, but distinct genetic susceptibility to diseases. For instance, German Shepherds, Labradors and Dobermans have a tendency toward hip dysplasia.
Mutts offer more genetic variance, but when you get a beautiful, or unusually great mutt you have a breed of one. A mutt is a totally unique genetic mix that would be nearly impossible to recreate (depending on how many different breeds are mixed together). So, what do you do if your mutt great, and you would like another?
One company based in the Bay Area has an answer: cloning. Encore Pet Science (a division of BioArts International) offers a unique pet cloning service. The CEO of BioArts, Lou Hawthorne, even owns a pair of beautiful cloned dogs. After spending the afternoon with the dogs, it’s truly amazing. They’re very hard to tell apart.
But, not everyone is thrilled with the idea of pet cloning. The American Anti-Vivisection Society (AAVS) claims that cloning is cruel because it produces a lot of wasted animals for one viable result. And the San Francisco SPCA would rather see an animal rescued from the pound than have families attempt to resurrect or copy their beloved pets.
But what’s the real science behind this issue? Brian Simison, Curator/Head of the Center for Comparative Genomics at California Academy of Science says, “I think that the common perception of cloning is… off.” He continues on that this may be as a result of movies like Jurassic Park. Apparently humans have been cloning organisms since the 20s or 30s (beginning with bacteria) and the sheep Dolly was cloned in 1995. (By the way, Dolly died at the age of 6 from a virus– not as a result of the cloning processas urban legend claims.) “The argument that cloning produces a lot of organisms that are mutants and have to be put down I think is false…” Brian Simison continues, “…either the clone works or it doesn’t.”
But the controversy surrounding cloning continues. Whatever your opinion, the cloning of pets is an amazing scientific achievement that is sure to spawn many other applications of the theories behind it.
-Ty
I have a young King Charles and love her personality. Our Cockers were less interesting and had skin and ear issues; Wolfie, my mutt, had no ailments, was the most intelligent, my favorite, and my best friend. However, I’m not sure that I would gamble with a mutt where we don’t know the genetic histories and personalities of the parents. Is there a breeder of a long line of healthy Mutts? Mutts from “Selective Breeding”?
Comment by Shelby — July 21, 2009 @ 1:19 pm