Drug-Sniffing Dogs Cloned in Korea

A clonagem apesar de ser um assunto deveras polémico, já se instalou para ficar. Neste blog tentaremos estar atentos às novidades sobre este assunto e que muitas vezes passam despercebidas ou são propositadamente pouco publicitadas. Ficarão referenciadas pela etiqueta clonagem.

PHOTO IN THE NEWS: Drug-Sniffing Dogs Cloned in Korea

April 24, 2008—The Korean Customs Service today unveiled seven golden Labrador retrievers cloned from a skilled drug-sniffing canine in active service—a test to see if duplicates could reduce the difficulty and expense of finding dogs qualified to detect drugs and explosives, officials say.

The dogs all currently share the same name: "Toppy"

In February all seven passed a behavior test to check if they are qualified to work as sniffing dogs.

If the cloned dogs succeed in other tests for physical strength, concentration, and sniffing ability, they will be put to work by July 2009 at airports and harbors across South Korea, according to the training center.

The cloning was conducted by the team at Seoul National University that in 2005 successfully created the first known dog clone, an Afghan hound named Snuppy.