(ORDO NEWS) — Three days after the first cloned polar wolf, Maya, celebrated her 100th birthday on September 22 at Sinogene Biotechnology Co. in the city of Xuzhou, Jiangsu province in east China, the second cloned wolf cub Haer was born.
This proves once again that cloning technology can provide powerful support to the world‘s efforts to protect wildlife and restore endangered species.
As in the first case, the new cloned wolf cub was nurtured by his surrogate mother, a beagle dog, and his donor cell was taken from a skin sample from a wild male arctic wolf, which was also from Harbin Polar Wildlife Park, located in northeast Heilongjiang province. China.
The new cloned wolf cub is named after a male Arctic wolf from Harbin Park, who was first imported from Canada and named Haer.
Newborn Haer will also be transferred to the Harbin park when he grows up after 100 days at the Sinogene facility, Dai Rui, CEO of the Harbin Wildlife Park, told the Global Times.
Researchers at Sinogene told the Global Times that after the birth of two healthy cloned arctic wolves, breeding cloned wolves will also be on the agenda.
They hope that cloning technology can be applied to more endangered wild species and make a positive contribution to the global protection of biodiversity.
According to Dai, Haer and Mai are expected to have the next generation in the future. She also said that her wildlife park and Sinogene have no plans to create a third or fourth cloned arctic wolf yet, but they will work together on cloning other species in the next phase. Dai declined to share more information.
Haer has similar physiological characteristics to Maya. He weighed 571 grams and was 20 centimeters long at birth, while Maya weighed 520 grams and 22 centimeters long.
The two wolves were sampled at the same time on November 5, 2020, but Haer was born three months after Mai.
The researchers at Sinogene explained to the Global Times that due to the difficulties and challenges of implementing cloning technology on polar wolves, Maya’s embryo was the first to succeed in the process.
The researchers stated that there are no gender differences in the introduction of cloning technology.
Hare’s cloning was accomplished by creating 99 new embryos from enucleated eggs and somatic cells, followed by the transfer of 61 embryos into the wombs of seven Beagles, of which one was born a healthy wolf cub, Global Times has learned.
Meanwhile, Mai’s first cloned polar wolf has been living in a Harbin park for a week now, Dai told the Global Times.
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