Copy Cats

Garlic was dead, and there was nothing Huang Yu could do about it—or so he thought. Hours after burying his cat in a park near his home in Wenzhou, a city in eastern China, the 22-year-old recalled an article he’d read on dog cloning. What if someday he could bring Garlic—who had died in 2018 of a sudden infection—back to life?

“In my heart, Garlic is irreplaceable,” says Huang, who dug up his British shorthair and put the 2-year-old cat in his refrigerator in preparation for producing a clone, an exact genetic copy. “Garlic didn’t leave anything for future generations, so I could only choose to clone.”

That thought led him to Sinogene, a pet-cloning company based in Beijing. Roughly seven months later, for the price of $35,000, Sinogene produced what China’s official news media declared to be the country’s first cloned cat.

Pet cloning might soon be the latest fad to take over China, but it’s not confined there. People in South Korea and even in the United States have also had their pets cloned. A Texas-based company called ViaGen Pets offers dog cloning for the hefty price of $50,000 and cat cloning for $35,000. (Cloning cats is cheaper because the process is simpler.)

But is cloning pets a good idea?

Garlic was dead, and there was nothing Huang Yu could do about it—or so he thought. He buried his cat in a park near his home in Wenzhou, a city in eastern China. Hours later, the 22-year-old recalled an article he’d read on dog cloning. The cat had died in 2018 of a sudden infection. What if someday he could bring Garlic back to life?

“In my heart, Garlic is irreplaceable,” says Huang, who dug up his British shorthair and put the 2-year-old cat in his refrigerator in preparation for producing a clone, an exact genetic copy. “Garlic didn’t leave anything for future generations, so I could only choose to clone.”

That thought led him to Sinogene, a pet-cloning company based in Beijing. Roughly seven months later, Sinogene produced what China’s official news media declared to be the country’s first cloned cat. Huang paid $35,000 for the service.

Pet cloning might soon be the latest fad to take over China, but it’s not confined there. People in South Korea and even in the United States have also had their pets cloned. A Texas-based company called ViaGen Pets offers dog cloning for the hefty price of $50,000. The company offers cat cloning for $35,000. Cloning cats is cheaper because the process is simpler.

But is cloning pets a good idea?

That’s a question previous generations never had to grapple with. It wasn’t until 1996, when Scottish scientists produced the first clone of a mammal—a sheep named Dolly—that most people began to think of cloning as something other than science fiction. Since then, scientists have cloned other mammals, including rats, cattle, horses, and deer. South Korean scientists cloned the first dog in 2005. Soon, they began cloning pet dogs (see “Key Dates: Cloning”).

Cloning pets is still relatively rare; Sinogene has cloned only about 40 dogs. But China, with more than 73 million pet owners, may be the place where it really takes off. The barriers to cloning pets are especially low there. The nation doesn’t have any laws against animal cruelty, and using animals for medical research or cosmetics testing isn’t seen as problematic.

China’s genetics know-how is also growing rapidly. Just last year, Chinese scientists succeeded in producing the world’s first primate clones, and another Chinese scientist announced that he’d created the world’s first genetically edited human babies (though he was recently sentenced to three years in prison for his work).

That’s a question that previous generations never had to grapple with. Then, in 1996, Scottish scientists produced the first clone of a mammal—a sheep named Dolly. That’s when most people began to think of cloning as something other than science fiction. Since then, scientists have cloned other mammals, including rats, cattle, horses, and deer. South Korean scientists cloned the first dog in 2005. Soon, they began cloning pet dogs (see “Key Dates: Cloning”).

Cloning pets is still relatively rare. Sinogene has cloned only about 40 dogs. But China has more than 73 million pet owners. That makes it a favorable place for pet cloning to really take off. The barriers to cloning pets are especially low there. The nation doesn’t have any laws against animal cruelty. And using animals for medical research or cosmetics testing isn’t considered problematic.

China’s genetics know-how is also growing rapidly. Just last year, Chinese scientists succeeded in producing the world’s first primate clones. Another Chinese scientist announced that he’d created the world’s first genetically edited human babies. He was recently sentenced to three years in prison for his work.

Some people say that cloning pets can help ease the emotional pain of losing a beloved four-legged friend.

“It satisfies the owner’s spiritual needs and increases happiness,” says Wang Chuduan, a professor at China Agricultural University in Beijing. “There is a market demand. So what’s the problem?”

However, others say it’s both unethical and inhumane. They point out that it takes several pets to produce just one clone.

Here’s how it’s typically done: Scientists remove eggs from a group of female pets and replace the DNA in those eggs with DNA that’s been harvested from the pet being cloned. An electric shock to the eggs triggers fertilization, and the embryos are then surgically implanted into surrogate pet mothers.

Cloning a pet usually takes many tries; some experts estimate that it works only 20 percent of the time. Most often, the surrogate mothers have miscarriages. To clone Garlic, scientists implanted skin cells from Huang’s original cat into eggs harvested from other cats. Forty cloned embryos were implanted into four surrogate mother cats. That produced three pregnancies, two of which resulted in miscarriages, says Chen Benchi, head of Sinogene’s experiments team.

Jessica Pierce, a bioethicist at the University of Colorado Denver, argues that the use of surrogates to produce clones is “similar to the harm that you would impose on a woman whose only purpose in life is to be a breeding machine for man.”

“The cat has no intrinsic value,” she says. “It’s used as an object, as a means to somebody’s end.”

Some people say that cloning pets can help ease the emotional pain of losing a beloved four-legged friend.

“It satisfies the owner’s spiritual needs and increases happiness,” says Wang Chuduan, a professor at China Agricultural University in Beijing. “There is a market demand. So what’s the problem?”

But others say it’s both unethical and inhumane. They point out that it takes several pets to produce just one clone.

Here’s how it’s typically done: Scientists remove eggs from a group of female pets. Then they replace the DNA in those eggs with DNA that’s been harvested from the pet being cloned. An electric shock to the eggs triggers fertilization. The embryos are then surgically implanted into surrogate pet mothers.

Cloning a pet usually takes many tries. Some experts estimate that it works only 20 percent of the time. Most often, the surrogate mothers have miscarriages. To clone Garlic, scientists put skin cells from Huang’s original cat into eggs harvested from other cats. Forty cloned embryos were implanted into four surrogate mother cats. That produced three pregnancies. Two of them resulted in miscarriages, says Chen Benchi, head of Sinogene’s experiments team.

Jessica Pierce, a bioethicist at the University of Colorado Denver, argues that the use of surrogates to produce clones is “similar to the harm that you would impose on a woman whose only purpose in life is to be a breeding machine for man.”

“The cat has no intrinsic value,” she says. “It’s used as an object, as a means to somebody’s end.”

Even if all goes right, there’s no guarantee that the cloned pet will look identical to, or have the same personality as, the original—just as identical twins don’t always behave or  look exactly alike. Garlic’s clone is missing a patch of black fur that graced the original’s chin. Sinogene also said that clones might show slight differences in fur and eye color.

“If I tell you I wasn’t disappointed, then I would be lying to you,” says Huang. “But I’m also willing to accept that there are certain situations in which there are limitations to the technology.”

Animal rights advocates say there’s another reason not to clone pets: Each year, 1.5 million dogs and cats in U.S. shelters are euthanized, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

“Why buy a cloned dog or cat,” says Pierce, “when millions of animals in shelters desperately need a home?”

Even if all goes right, there’s no guarantee that the cloned pet will look identical to the original. And it might not even have the same personality. It’s the same with identical twins; they don’t always behave or look exactly alike. Garlic’s clone is missing a patch of black fur that graced the original’s chin. Sinogene also said that clones might show slight differences in fur and eye color.

“If I tell you I wasn’t disappointed, then I would be lying to you,” says Huang. “But I’m also willing to accept that there are certain situations in which there are limitations to the technology.”

There are many pets living in shelters across the country. Each year, 1.5 million dogs and cats in U.S. shelters are euthanized, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Animal rights advocates note that as another reason not to clone pets.

“Why buy a cloned dog or cat,” says Pierce, “when millions of animals in shelters desperately need a home?”

Sui-Lee Wee is a reporter in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times.

Sui-Lee Wee is a reporter in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times.