The wild arctic wolf, named Maya, was born on June 10 and on September 19, the gene firm released its video.
Report Himalayas Desk, 20 Sept 2022
In a first, a wild arctic wolf has been successfully cloned by a China-based gene firm. While the Chinese gene firm Sinogene Biotechnology released the first video of the cloned wolf on Monday, it has been born 100 days ago in a lab.
Quoting Chinese experts, Global Times has reported that the birth of wild arctic wolf pioneers the breeding of more rare and endangered animals through cloning technology.
Arctic wolves, which are often known as “polar wolves” or “white wolves,” live in Greenland and the Arctic areas of North America. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, or the IUCN, lists arctic wolves as endangered in the Red List of Threatened Species.
Mr Mi Jidong, the General Manager of Sinogene Biotechnology has said that the research in cooperation with Harbin Polarland on cloning the arctic wolf was started in 2020.
“After two years of painstaking efforts, the arctic wolf was cloned successfully. It is the first case of its kind in the world,” Jidong has said at a press conference in Beijing.
The birth of the world’s first cloned wild arctic wolf is of great significance to the conservation of rare and endangered animals and biodiversity, experts say.
Global Times reported that the wold was born on June 10 and is in “very good health” as was also substantiated by the video.
“Its donor cell came from the skin sample of a wild female arctic wolf, which had been introduced from Canada to Harbin Polarland. Its oocyte was from a female dog and its surrogate mother was a beagle,” said Mr Zhao Jianping, the company’s deputy general manager.
The selection of a dog as Maya’s surrogate was made because dogs share genetic ancestry with ancient wolves and it’s more likely to succeed through cloning technology, the report quoted experts as saying.
From the world’s first mammal clone “Dolly,” cloning technology has provided the possibility to diversify the populations of some species such as cattle, pigs and horses. When endangered species in some places are identified, cloning of cells preserved from freezing technologies could also generate new life, experts said.
The cloned wolf now lives with her surrogate beagle in a lab of Sinogene in Xuzhou, East China’s Jiangsu Province, and later she will be delivered to the Harbin Polarland, Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province and displayed to the public.
