Quick Dips

Cloning Cattle

In a world first, scientists at AgResearch Ruakura have successfully produced a clone heifer calf from Lady, the sole surviving member of a shorthorn breed of cattle sent to the Auckland islands, 400 km south of New Zealand, more than 100 years ago. The cattle had survived alone in an environment of great climatic diversity and almost impossible food varieties including seaweed and coarse salty sub-Antarctic grasses.

Lady, now aged around 13, and a young heifer were brought to the mainland by the Rare Breeds Conservation Society, which located the pair on Enderby, one of the smaller Auckland Islands [March, August Quick Dips 1991]. The pair were sent to Ruakura six years ago where the heifer died, and attempts to fertilise Lady with frozen semen taken from Auckland Island bulls were costly and unsuccessful. The Auckland A&P Association agreed to contribute up to $8,000 a year over three years to help with new attempts to save the shorthorn breed.

The first steps were taken earlier this year with the birth of a pure bred bull calf, conceived using in vitro fertilisation. That involved a surrogate mother carrying an egg from Lady that had been fertilised with sperm taken from one of the dead Enderby Island bulls. However to save the breed from extinction a female Enderby Island calf was needed. As Lady had been unable to produce one herself, a clone calf was the obvious solution.

AgResearch scientists were delighted with the birth of LC (Lady Clone). The small black and white calf is not only the first cattle clone produced from an adult cell, but the first clone in the world to be alive at the same time as her genetically identical adult self.

"Until now the on-going genetic pool of this very rare breed was under dire threat. Nowhere else in the world did you have a living example of what was once a domestic breed, which had survived for more than 100 years in a hostile environment free from human and chemical influence, back in captivity," says team leader, Dr David Wells.

He considers LC's birth as a significant event for New Zealand science and conservation.

Three other cows at Ruakura are pregnant with Lady clones and are expected to give birth in late 1998 and early 1999.