(MY) cloned turtles

[Guest guest]

Dear Madam,

Thought the attached message would be of some interest to

you. I examined some of the cloning plans and projects regarding endangered

species in captivity at the Hyderabad Zoo during the Indian Zoo Inquiry

project. A lot of it seemed like the cosmetic exercise talked about in the

attached article. If there is no habitat, there is little point in cloning

for conservation. Maybe for curiosity and publishing papers in journals.

Regards,

 

 

 

http://144.16.65.194/hpg/envis/doc1999ahtml/enclon210501.html

From cree Tue May 1 19:36:37 2001

Wed, 18 Apr 2001 23:30:32 +0530

Ashish Fernandes

Natural History of South Asia - General discussion and research

 

Cloning and conservation

 

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With reference to the recent postings regarding the cloning of endangered

species, this recent article from the Ecologist might be of interest.

Ashish

 

Bessie and the gaur

 

The promise that cloning will be a boon to conservation is, says Malcolm

Tait, a complete cop-out.

 

Maybe it's a symptom of twothousanditis, the condition brought on by

excessive attention paid to a particular number with no significance

whatsoever other than tidiness, but this year has seen an extraordinary rash

 

of stories relating to 'the science of the future': genetics. Wherever you

look, there's a new challenge to medical and human ethics - children's

gender genetically manipulated in Spain to bypass inherited disease; genetic

 

information required by insurance companies; a baby genetically chosen with

cells that might save his dying sister; the human genome under the

microscope; even a UFO-cult with the funds, alleged ability and necessary

loopholes to try cloning the first human. It's as if someone at the

beginning of the year opened the Pandora's box marked 'Frankenstein', and

the doctor's influence came pouring out.

Mankind has always enjoyed testing its own limits, of course, and there's

nothing it likes better than a good ethical argument - talk radio and TV

chat shows wouldn't survive without it - but we've entered a moral maze this

year that has heads spinning.

As ever, the arguments boil down to one key confrontation: the needs of the

planet versus the rights of the individual. The topic - genetics - may be

comparatively new, but it's the same old argument. The world has more people

than it can cater for: yes, but if science can help my childless marriage,

why shouldn't I have the right to take advantage of it? Excessive vehicle

use causes global warming and ultimately destruction: yes, but I need my car

to get my children to school. The long-term prospects would appear to be

disastrous: yes, but I need a short term solution.

However, there's one of this year's genetic developments that has nothing

to do with human rights, nothing to do, despite appearances to the contrary,

with animal rights, and everything to do with scientific experimentation

dressed up as benefit. Last month, a cow named Bessie from Iowa was due to

give birth to a gaur, an endangered ox-like animal from Asia. The process

was achieved by injecting gaur cells, complete with their DNA, into

hollowed-out cow eggs, then electrically fusing the eggs and DNA together.

Of the 81 successfully developed eggs that were implanted into cattle, eight

resulted in pregnancy, three managed not to miscarry, and two turned into

embryos which were removed for monitoring. Only Bessie soldiered on. At the

time this article was written, Bessie was still approaching labour, but

whether or not this first experiment was successful, it won't be the last.

Already there are plans afoot for more work along similar lines. The

bucardo, a Pyrenean mountain goat, became extinct in January 2000, when the

last of its kind was put out of its lonely misery by a falling tree. Cells

were taken from the corpse, and the Massachusetts based company Advanced

Cell Technology is planning to clone the creature back to life. The panda is

next on the list for rejuvenation, and there's talk of trying to bring back

the Tasmanian tiger, a wolf-like animal that lost its last grip on survival

in the 1930s. Even the mammoth, for crying out loud, is being looked at for

a possible comeback. The makers of next year's second sequel to Jurassic

Park will be able to keep their marketing funds firmly in their back

pockets.

Now, the mammoth may be a bit pie-in-the-sky - the DNA that we've got from

an ancient frozen carcass is patchy to say the least - but there's no doubt

that the thought of bringing back the bucardo, an extinct species, certainly

stimulates the imagination. It's a fascinating scientific gimmick, a perfect

example of doing something because we can. We should leave it at that.

But we won't. Already there is talk of this process being a marvellous aid

to conservation, a boon to the world's endangered species, a solution to the

perennial problem of man's cohabitation with beast. This is tripe, for the

cloning of endangered species is as far removed from the spirit and

psychology of conservation as we've ever been since man first noticed he was

killing off the birds and beasts.

Conservation is a precarious affair, because its failure is finite. It has,

quite literally, a deadline. Sometimes that deadline is easy to see, other

times it's not. In the 1980s, it was realised that whales were struggling in

their relationship with man, and new laws and consumption restrictions were

put into place. By the early 1990s, the plight of the elephant came to life,

and reasonably successfully dealt with. We've recently discovered that the

troubled tiger is in even more danger than we'd previously thought. Wheels

are beginning to turn. Yet for every headline species that captures the

heart, there are many many more that don't make it. Most of the world first

heard of Miss Waldron's Red Colobus monkey this year when it was announced

that it had become extinct. A sense of simultaneous gain and loss.

Extinction, of course, is part of evolution, and had man's foot- print not

covered the lands and seas, the world would still have continued its course

of saying farewell to species whose day had gone. The fact is, however, that

man has not just accelerated that process, but is continuing to do so at a

rate that doesn't allow the surviving species to adjust to their new

ecosystems. Conservation isn't just about saving a particular species, it's

about reducing our destructive impact on natural processes that are in

increasing danger of being unable to sustain themselves, and ultimately,

therefore, of sustaining us.

There's too much at stake, for nature and for ourselves, to take

conservation lightly. But conservation takes time and money. It requires

careful management and planning, and involves apparent sacrifices. It

demands that the long-term view takes precedence over, or is at least built

into, the short term. If conservation is going to work, mankind has to want

it so much that it hurts.

SLIPPERY SLOPE

Which brings us back to Bessie. Suddenly, for the first time ever, we've

got an alternative to conservation. It's only a tiny crack at present, but

science will want to widen it. What's the point in putting all that effort

into looking after ecosystems if we've got the ability to clone everything

back into existence? Just think of what we can achieve - we can carry on

crashing through the planet, doing what we want, and whenever some species

starts to totter as a result, we've got the technology to see it through the

hard times. Of course, no biotech company would put it like that at

present - it would appear as scientific coldheartedness and therefore be

commercial suicide - but the option will be there. Cloning endangered

species is a classic case of science no longer being used for prevention,

but for apparent cure. It is lazy science. However much its supporters may

protest that cloning will only ever be used to complement conservation, to

step in when conservation has failed, the day will come when the financial

benefits of, say, clearing a forest will outweigh the costs of cloning the

endangered species within. Someone will be prepared to pay for it, and the

rot will have begun.

But what will we then do with these phoenix-like creatures? If their

habitat is no more, where will we put them? Perhaps we will create

reservations for them - but to save space, we'll need to make sure we only

hang on to the species which benefit ourselves. We'll need to recreate

habitats that suit them, and if our new cloned versions require special

diets, or develop viruses or illnesses that their originals never

encountered, then we can genetically modify their surroundings to suit. Any

imperfections that are built in, we can decode and correct. In short, who

needs Nature's ecosystems, when we can create our own?

This may seem a far-fetched future, but it is in fact perfectly in line

with the way mankind has always been - except that he's now taking a bigger

step than ever before. From his earliest days, he has used whatever tools

are available to him to conquer nature, and reshape it into his own

likeness. He has recorded his kills by scratching them into a rock; when he

realised hunting was too difficult he herded instead; he has carved his

image into every known material; he has put creatures into cages to look at,

 

or taken them on as pets; he has hunted them for fun. Why would anyone think

he wouldn't instinctively want to go that one further step - albeit a

mightier one than ever - and restructure nature to suit his precise needs?

PASSING THE BUCK

None of this is to say that genetic scientists and those who fund them are

necessarily power-mad, corrupt seekers of world domination. Science is the

discipline of discovery, of finding out, of increasing knowledge. Thus it is

that, generally, each new step forward is taken with the honest and sincere

desire to benefit man.

Yet it's curious how often genetic scientists, nudging the process onward,

tend to see their own work in isolation and distinct from the overall

movement.

'The prospect of human cloning causes us grave misgivings,' writes Ian

Wilmut, co-cloner with Keith Campbell in 1996 of Dolly the sheep, in his

book The Second Creation. 'It is physically risky, it could have untoward

effects on the psychology of the cloned child, and in the end we see no

medical justification for it. For us, the technology that produced Dolly has

far wider significance.'

Wilmut is fully convinced of the benefits of his own work, knows that he

has paved the way for future cloning, yet is distancing himself from any

responsibility for it. It's rather like the work in the 1930s on splitting

the atom and harnessing its energy - everyone involved could see possible

positive benefits in their own specific research, but relied on everyone

else not to see the potential for harm.

Which is why, ultimately, we should none of us be fooled. The cloning of

endangered or extinct animals is an extraordinary feat, and one which, if

continued, will inevitably lead to yet more and more extraordinary feats.

It is the latest stage in man's attempts to control his world, and like

Frankenstein's monster, it may one day lead to its creator's own

destruction.

So let's drop the pretence right now. Let's honestly admit to ourselves

what we're getting into. Cloning is a brand new chapter in the history of

mankind, but it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with conservation.

 

Malcolm Tait is managing editor of The Ecologist.

 

 

On 7/12/07, yitzeling <yitzeling wrote:

>

> Coming soon - clone leatherback turtles - Malaysiakini.com Jul 12, 07

> 7:21am :

>

> Scientists in Malaysia could try to clone the critically endangered

> leatherback sea turtle, the world's largest living reptile, if other

> efforts to conserve it fail.

>

> " We are worried about the dwindling number of leatherback turtles, "

> Junaidi Che Ayub, the director-general of the Fisheries Department,

> was quoted as saying in the New Straits Times newspaper.

>

> " Although some have been returning to our shores to nest, their eggs

> have been infertile and do not hatch, " he said in the report.

>

> The option to clone leatherbacks, the world's largest turtles, is part

> of a 32-million-ringgit study to save the species from extinction, the

> paper said.

>

> From 91,000 to 5,000

>

> Leatherbacks drew large crowds to the coast of Terengganu during the

> 1960s, as tourists marvelled at nesting females.

>

> But they have been hunted for their meat and shells and many get

> entangled and die in fishing nets in the sea, which has brought the

> creature to the verge of extinction.

>

> The option to clone leatherbacks would be studied over five years,

> Junaidi said, in a project involving local and foreign experts, who

> will test the technique on abundant green turtles first.

>

> " Once we have perfected the technique, we will apply it to leatherback

> turtles as they are a more complicated species in the turtle family, "

> Junaidi said.

>

> Experts say the number of nesting leatherback turtles in the Pacific

> has plummeted to 5,000 from an estimated 91,000 in 1980.

>

> At least 40 conservationists, scientists and officials from the Asian

> Development Bank are to meet in Terengganu next week to develop a

> conservation plan to save leatherbacks in the Pacific region.

>

> - AFP

>

>

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

2007/07/17-New Straits Times

 

Turtle clones: Laudable move to save species

By : DIVAKARAN THALASSERY, Bangalore, India

 

Email to friend Print article

 

 

THE Malaysian government's endeavours in protecting wildlife are by

now well-known the world over.

 

The new project ( " Doing a Dolly on turtles may just save them " — NST,

July 12) being launched to study the possibility of cloning

leatherback turtles in order to save them from extinction is laudable

considering the cost and technicalities involved.

 

Since the dwindling population of the species does not give much scope

for natural procreation, cloning seems to be a possible alternative,

though fraught with genetic problems.

 

Nature lovers and wildlife activists, nevertheless, will wait and

watch the success of the project, which may turn out to be a

forerunner for more such projects that can save many more threatened

species from becoming extinct.