As cat lovers, I believe you enjoy the time you spend with your cat no matter their age; either they are kitten or a grown cat you adopted from the shelter, you still wish that it will stay that way. Where your cat never gets old, and you have so much time to spend time with them. However, as much as you want the situation to be like that there are lots of factors that can play a role on your cat’s passing.
It cannot be denied that you will be mourning and upset over your cat, because, after all, you’ve had great memories with them when they were still alive! In such situation, when people are over the mourning phase, they tend to either keep the memories in the form of pictures, keeping their pet tags or having their cat’s picture made into a form of pillow so they can still feel that their beloved cat is still with them. It’s normal for people to feel loss and mourn their lost ones, however, there are certain people that cannot move on from this phase and decide to spend their money on cloning their cats.
For this case, let’s take an example of a woman from Austin Texas, named Kelly Anderson. She is a known dog trainer and TikTok influencer. In 2017, her cat, Chai passed away at the age of 5 years old. Facing this situation, Kelly decided to spend her money (around 25k) to clone her cat, resulting in her having the clone of her old cat, whom she named Belle. According to her, the reason why she decided to clone her cat is because Chai had lived only a short life, and when she posted about Belle on TikTok she got a lot of reactions, from the people that followed her to animal non-profit organizations such as PETA. She faced tremendous backlash. A lot of people in her comment sections condemned her about the unethical nature of cloning her cat.
What makes cloning your pets or cats dangerous?
Firstly, we must understand that to be able to clone a pet we require cells that contains intact DNA. The issue that arises then when after the animal has passed on is that the tissue will start to degrade after it’s death, which is caused by bacteria. For cloning to be successful the people have to act quickly so they can have a chance to preserve their animal’s genetic material. This procedure is dangerous in the lab life and during their various development phases, and the chances that this procedure succeeds are 75%.
Even if the procedure does succeed,
you have to keep it in mind that although the cloned pets or cats look exactly alike or act similar, they are still 100% different. Cloned cats have an individual personality, for example, cat #1 lived for snuggles and soft treats while cat #2 may be more of a hunter who wants to spend their days pouncing on insects or toys or even going out.
What happens with the rest of the DNA that is considered “extra” in the lab?
With a procedure that is not guaranteed, the rest of the DNA that is in the lab could be discarded, and knowing this can be upsetting. Many veterinarians or other people that are experts in this field or know the procedure really well do not recommend this
procedure. Instead, their advice is in favor of you adopting cats in the shelter, so that you can get to know them better and give them a chance to live a grand life with you - going through a journey and making memories. Lots of cats in the shelter also deserve to be loved. Robin Downing, a hospital director of Windsor veterinary clinic stated “A fur baby who, given the opportunity, could bring a lot of light and laughter into your life, too.”