Can cloning bring endangered species back from the brink?
From our UK edition
This spring, San Diego Zoo’s Wildlife Alliance proudly announced the arrival of Trey, a newborn colt. Trey is a Przewalski’s horse – the last wild horse species on the planet, and one of the least pronounceable (say ‘zhuh-varl-skis’ and you’ll be close). It was another small conservation victory. But Trey is particularly unusual, because this little pony is a clone. Isn’t it too late for our battered ecosystems to start mucking around with cloning? Trey is genetically identical to Kuporovic, a stallion whose cells were cryonically preserved in 1980. He’s also a genetic twin of Kurt, the first ever cloned Przewalski’s horse, born in 2020. This is big news in the cloning world: until now, cloning has only produced one individual from an endangered species.
