Canadian Scientists Clone World-Renowned Bull

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Friday September 15 5:25 PM ET

Canadian Scientists Clone World-Renowned Bull

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By Patrick White

QUEBEC CITY (Reuters) - Canadian researchers said Friday they had cloned a male calf from the cells of Canada's world-renowned Starbuck Holstein bull, which sired more than 200,000 offspring.

Scientists at Quebec's Artificial Insemination Center and the University of Montreal's veterinary faculty are expected to make the official announcement next Wednesday of last week's birth of Starbuck 2.

``Starbuck was a truly international star and we are giving birth to a new star,'' Michel Saint-Pierre, general manager at the artificial insemination center, told Reuters in an interview.

The announcement comes three years after the controversial ground-breaking cloning experiment in 1997 that produced Dolly, a sheep now living happily in Scotland and who gave birth to lambs for the third consecutive spring this year.

An ethicist interviewed Friday said the news about Starbuck 2 was somewhat worrying.

``There is obviously big commercial interest in doing this. People want to have the best animal they can, but on the other hand there is a lot to be said for maintaining a certain degree of diversity,'' said Margaret Somerville, founding director at Montreal's McGill University Ethics Center.

``If you took this to an extreme and said everybody wanted the same identical animal in the world, then there is a real concern about doing that, even in agriculture. If there is any challenge to ecological systems, the less diverse they are the more vulnerable they are. We have to be conscious about what we are doing,'' she added.

The original Starbuck, a celebrity among the agricultural community until his death at the age 20 in 1998, was famous for his sturdy dairy frame, superb feet and legs.

Starbuck's frozen sperm was sold in more than 70 countries and extended the genetic line of the near-perfect specimen of a bull beyond his natural lifespan.

The cloned calf, temporarily known as Starbuck 2, was born on September 7 and weighed 55 kilograms (120 pounds) at birth. Scientists say he is doing well.

``He is a perfect copy of his father. The critical stage is over and Starbuck 2 is very healthy,'' Saint-Pierre told Reuters.

Tissue and cells were taken from Starbuck before he died in the fall of 1998 and a cloned embryo was transplanted into a cow in December 1999, the spokesman said.

``We expect that the calf will be as productive as his father, but longer,'' Saint-Pierre, stressing the cloning experiment focused on the transmission of quality from Starbuck.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 17, 2000

Answers

WHY DID THEY BOTHER?

THEY COULD HAVE FOUND ALL THE BULL AND BULL SHIT THEY NEED FROM THE DOOM ZOMBIES HERE AND AT SLeeZ-ey'S .



-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 17, 2000.

Interesting point.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 17, 2000.

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