Beagle Gives Birth to Cloned Arctic Wolf

This week Sinogene Biotechnology of Beijing showed off its latest creation, a clone of a Canadian Arctic wolf born to a surrogate beagle mom. The cub, named Maya, was born (if that’s the right term) on June 10. The surrogate mom remains nameless. (Why?)

“To save the endangered animal, we started the research cooperation with Harbin Polarland on cloning the arctic wolf in 2020,” Sinogene general manager Mi Jidong said at the press conference. “After two years of painstaking efforts, the Arctic wolf was cloned successfully. It is the first case of its kind in the world.”

(In fact the Arctic wolf is not “endangered.” The IUCN lists Canis lupus as a species of “Least Concern.”)

The process was not simple. The mad scientists took cells from a donor wolf’s skin sample and, using developing eggs (oocytes) from a female dog, built 137 embryos and transferred 85 of them into the uteri of seven different beagles. The donor wolf – also named Maya – was brought to China from Canada in 2006 (she died in 2021).

Young Maya will eventually take up residency at Harbin Polarland in China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province. She’ll live alone, at least at first, but will entertain plenty of human visitors to the polar-themed amusement park, for better or worse.

Although Sinogene is primarily a pet-cloning outfit (cost of copying your dog, $50,000), the company is now teaming up with Beijing Wildlife Park to use cloning technology to preserve rare and endangered animals. They have yet to announce any specific projects.

We’re not sure how we feel about this brave new world. Somewhere between fascinated and appalled.

Photo credit: China News Service