Chinese scientists cloned Arctic wolf as part of 'milestone' nature preservation project
Researchers in China have cloned a wild Arctic wolf - and they hope this controversial genetic technology can now be used to save other endangered species as the world approaches an extinction crisis.
On Monday, Beijing-based Sinogene Biotechnology unveiled a clone of a female wolf that scientists have named Maya, marking 100 days since her birth on June 10.
Maya, a grey-brown pup with a bushy tail, is in a healthy condition, the company said. During the press conference, the company showed a video of Maya playing and relaxing.
"After two years of painstaking efforts, the Arctic wolf has been successfully cloned. This is the first case of its kind in the world," Mi Jidong, the company's CEO, said at a press conference, according to Chinese state media.
The Arctic wolf, also known as the white wolf or polar wolf, is a subspecies of the gray wolf that lives in the high-latitude arctic tundra, northern Canada's Arctic archipelago. According to the World Wildlife Fund, its conservation status - a metric used to determine how close a species is to extinction - is considered low because its arctic habitat is remote enough to avoid hunters. However, climate change increasingly threatens its food supply, while human development assets such as roads and pipelines encroach on its territory.
Sinogene launched its 2020 arctic wolf cloning project in collaboration with Harbin Polarland.
To create Maya, the company used a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same method that was used to create the first-ever clone of a mammal, Dolly the sheep, in 1996.
They first used a skin sample from the original Arctic wolf - also named Maya, brought from Canada to Harbin Polarland - to produce "donor cells" that were then injected into a female dog's egg and gestated by a surrogate mother.
Scientists were able to create 85 of these embryos, which were transplanted into the wombs of seven beagles, resulting in one healthy Arctic wolf, a recently cloned Maya, state media reported.
The company said a second cloned Arctic wolf is expected to be born soon.
"Cloning technology provides a good starting point for the protection of endangered wild animals, which is a great contribution to the protection of biodiversity," said He Zhenming, director of the Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources of China's National Food and Drug Administration.
He added that the successful cloning of Maya was "a landmark event that is of great importance for the protection of wildlife in the world and the restoration of endangered species," the report says.
Sinogene said it will also cooperate with the Beijing Wildlife Park to explore new cloning technologies and applications, and to conduct research on the conservation and breeding of rare and endangered animals in China.
The original Maya died of old age in 2021. The cloned Maya now lives with her beagle surrogate mother and will later be housed at Harbin Polarland, open to the public.
