Cloned Cats To Make First Appearance At NYC Cat Show

Cloned Kittens To Make First Appearance At NYC Cat Show
Cloned cats? You must be kidding. Nope, I'm not kidding. Two cloned kittens will be on display at the Cat Fanciers' Association Cat Show in Madison Square Garden, NY, this weekend.

"Created" by a California based company called Genetic Savings & Clone, the two Bengal kittens will be on display at the show, but not available for handling.

The cats, named Tabouli and Baba Ganoush, are clones of a beautiful cat named Tahini. Tahini is owned by the son of the company's CEO, Lou Hawthorne.

This is not the first time a cat has been cloned, but these clones are "better." The story is that the method used to clone these cats, who were born to separate surrogate mothers, is "safer and more efficient" than other cloning methods. Chromatin transfer, as it is called, supposedly produces clones that more closely resemble the donor, and are "healthier" (read, not deformed).
Reportedly, they are going to clone more cats and sell them to the public at $50,000 each. Ironically, the most expensive cat ever sold was also a Bengal cat, at about $42,000 US. It has been reported that the record has been broken, but these cloned kitties may end up holding that record as well.

Side bar: that reminds me, I've recently updated the interesting cat facts page, but I haven't included the clone info or the most expensive cat on record either. I'll get to that soon.

Presumably, clones would give pet owners the ability to have departed cats cloned. The promise, of course, is that you would have a pet that is identical in appearance, and in some ways, behavior, to the original pet. The pictures on the wall would tell the story...

This is "Fluffy" - this is "Fluffy1" - this is "Fluffy2" - and so on.

As a cat owner, and as a cat lover in general, I never want to see any of my cats (or anyone else's) pass on. I wish they could live forever. But, at the same time, I wouldn't want a "copy" of any of my cats either. Each one of my cats is a unique creature, and can never be replaced. If I want another cat that looks like the one I have now, I'm sure I can find one in the sea of cats that are homeless and waiting for adoption.

In addition, I think that the moral and legal implications of cloning pets should be enough to make us stop and think. The one question we need to ask ourselves is this... when it becomes more advantageous to have a cloned cat than it does to have a non-cloned cat, what then?

Yes, it's expensive and therefore only for a select few right now. But that was the case with TV's, computers, vcr's, and cell phones. Now, households often have more than one of each. I know, those are technological devices, but so is cloning!

When the price comes down, the demand will go up. What people will use cloned cats for, I don't want to know. And what about the discards? What about the cats that are no longer interesting or useful because they are not clones? What happens to them?

What about the clones that don't quite cut it? What if there is some difference between the clone and the donor that makes the animal not useful (for whatever the intended purpose)?

"How was your day at the cat factory today, honey?" "You don't want to know."

Stop scaring me. I need another cat nap.


CNN has a report on the subject...

CNN's take on the cloned cats

BBC News reported in February of 2002 that the first pet ever to be cloned was a cat - appropriately named, CopyCat...

BBC News on the first cloned pet cat