Jaguar Clones

In Brazil 8 species have been put on the list for cloning. The jaguar being one of them. There are already 420 samples of wild tissue. When cloning begins, the jaguars, (and the other 7 species), will be kept in captivity*, in case the population of wild jaguars collapsed.

The 8 species are all threatened, but they hope to begin cloning a 'near threatened' species- Chrysocon brachyurus, or manned wolf some time soon. I assume this means that the other 8 have already been cloned, or that they are testing on non-threatened tissue samples instead. The latter is probably unlikely, because if they had wanted to do this, they would have chosen an entirely non-threatened species.

Embrapa plans to clone the grey brocket deer, bison, black lion tamarin, collared anteater,coati, and bush dog too. If succesful it may prove a very useful tool for endangered species in the years to come.

Conservationists take the obvious view, that we should try to preserve the 'real' organisms, and use clones as a last resort. Many also say that experimenting with less endangered species is important as well. We don't want to have a jaguar who eats everything in sight, including other jaguars!

Animals have been cloned before, so people aren't too worried that it won't work at all, but there is always the question that, *if the clones are kept in captivity, then surely it would be cheaper, or equal price, to bring in real jaguars, breed them, and release them in larger numbers once they are ready.

For further reading please see this link.