Chinese Hoping To Clone Pandas Scientists: It May Be Best Way To Increase Species’ Numbers

Frustrated by the failure of other artificial breeding techniques, Chinese scientists are considering cloning the animal that has come to symbolize endangered species everywhere - the giant panda.

Giant pandas mate only once a year, producing at most two cubs, only one of which usually survives - reproductive habits that have tried the patience of zoologists working to save the species.

They are native only to China, where the shrinking of their habitat and poaching have reduced their numbers to only about 1,000 in the wild.

“If we really can succeed in cloning them, then it will really work much better than the current methods in increasing their numbers,” Chen Dayuan, a zoologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a recent interview with China’s state-run Central Television.

Chen did not say that cloning research had already begun, just that it might be a promising way to save the giant panda from extinction.

However, the announcement in February that researchers in Scotland had succeeded in cloning an adult sheep by inserting genes from a 6-year-old ewe into unfertilized eggs drew attention to China’s own research.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences, the nation’s top scientific body, banned research into the cloning of humans soon after the reports of the cloned sheep.

But academy scientists have spoken out in support of cloning animals, and have announced several breakthroughs of their own, including the cloning of a cow from embryonic cells.

The proposal to clone pandas reflects the frustration of zoologists who, after decades of research, remain puzzled by many aspects of panda reproductive physiology.

“The pandas, particularly the females, don’t go into heat often enough because of endocrine disturbances,” Chen said.