Have you ever seen the movie "The Island (2005)"? The story is about human cloning. When I saw this movie, it was difficult to imagine cloning might be possible in near future. In movie, the cloning is used for a bad purpose but it could be used to preserve the endangered animals.      

Brazilian scientists have a project to clone endangered species such as jaguars, collared anteaters, maned wolves. The researchers have prepared to conduct experiment on the 420samples from threatened species they have collected and will apply for permission from government.

However, their aim to clone animals is to reproduce for zoo. This project idea is to show the public animals but not to supplement wild populations. This cloning technology is to avoid capturing the wild animals from natural habitat for zoo so that the researchers want this technology is applied to only for zoo not for conservation technology.

The researchers have collected range of species from a wider area and in addition to that, will conduct experiment on semen alteration and embryo production. They expect that the first animals to be cloned might be the maned wolf. Not only Brazil but also many other countries such as US, India, China and Japan are considered to use the similar technology for endangered animals.

In the beginning, I could not understand that how and why the clone technology could be used for zoo. After I read this article, I remind of the time when I visited the zoo. I saw many animals were locked in the small cage and raised by human. In some way , zoo itself is helpful to educate children to learn about wild animals, however, at the same time it is the human self-interest to keep other creatures in our own world. The intention to clone animals is a good strategy to protect them but at the same time, still remains question.

Source : TheGuardian