The World's First Cloned Cat, CC, Finally Gives Birth to Three Healthy Kittens at Age Five

CC Is Given a Look at Herself in a Mirror

"The medical argument for animal testing doesn't stand up. Even if it did, I don't think we should kill other species. We think we're so much better; I'm not sure we are. I tell people, 'we've beaten into submission every animal on the face of the earth, so we are the clear winners of whatever battle is going on between the species. Couldn't we be generous?' I really do think it's time to get nice. No need to keep beating up on them. I think we've got to show that we're kind."
-- Paul McCartney

CC, the world's first cloned cat, gave birth to three healthy kittens in late November. According to her progenitor and guardian, Dr. Duane Kraemer of Texas A&M, both mother and kits are doing well.

The father of the kittens is a naturally-born gray tomcat named Smokey who was brought in to mate with CC. One of the kittens has a gray coat like him while the other two favor CC.

"They're cute and we thought people ought to know about the birth," Kraemer told KVTV of Dallas on December 14th. (See "World's First Cloned Cat Gives Birth.") "But we're hoping it doesn't cause the same frenzy CC did."

Since her birth in December of 2001, there has been much speculation both inside and outside the scientific community regarding Carbon Copy's (or Copy Cat, as she is also known) inability to conceive and it has been largely believed that she was infertile. Although that is obviously not the case, the latest announcement from Kraemer raises considerably more questions than it answers.

For instance, press reports do not reveal if CC was able to conceive naturally or if she had to be artificially inseminated. Since she has been serving as Kraemer's guinea pig for the past five years, other attempts no doubt have been made to impregnate her. Why did these attempts fail? Also, how many miscarriages has she suffered?

CC with Two of Her Three Kittens

The capitalist media once again in its customary manner performed somersaults in order to protect Kraemer and his colleagues at Texas A&M. At the very least it could have demanded that an outside veterinarian be allowed to examine Carbon Copy and her kittens. The nation's animal rights groups are also derelict in their duties in that they did not make the same demand.

Other than announcing that he plans to keep the kittens, Kraemer is mum about his future plans for both them and CC. Already a pioneer in the cloning field, Texas A&M has also cloned, inter alia, cows, pigs, goats, horses, and deer.

As far as it is known, CC is one of only six domestic cats to be successfully cloned by Texas A&M and Lou Hawthorne's Genetic Savings and Clone of Sausalito. More importantly, she is the only one so far who has been able to reproduce. In July of 2005, two unrelated clones of African Wildcats gave birth to eight naturally-bred kittens at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species (ACRES) in New Orleans.

There is one important distinction between the two cases, however. The father of Madge's five kittens and Caty's three offsprings, Ditteaux, is himself a clone. It therefore remains to be determined if two domestic clones can reproduce. (See Cat Defender post of September 6, 2005 entitled "Clones of Endangered African Wildcats Give Birth to Eight Naturally-Bred Healthy Kittens in New Orleans.")

Hawthorne, who thought that he could make a packet cloning domestic cats, was forced to fold up shop back in October after having sold only two of his cloned cats. (See Cat Defender post of October 16, 2006 entitled "Unable to Turn a Profit, California Cat-Cloning Company Goes Out of Business.")

Although commercial cat-cloning may be temporarily in abeyance, it is full speed ahead for the purveyors of designer cats. For instance, Allerca of San Diego has created several allergy-free cats that it is now marketing to the public. (See Cat Defender posts of July 10, 2006 and October 10, 2006 entitled, respectively, "More Devilry from Scientific Community as California Company Creates World's First Hypoallergenic Cat" and "Dodgy Allerca and Dishonest CBS Join Forces to Market an Allergy-Free Cat Named Joshua to a Gullible Public.")

Madge's Five Kittens

Feline hybrids, such as Savannahs, are also now available commercially. (See Cat Defender post of May 19, 2005 entitled "Savannahs: More Feline Cruelty Courtesy of the Capitalists and Bourgeoisie.")

Both cat cloning and the creation of designer pets have been condemned by cat advocates around the world. With shelters killing millions of them each year there simply is not any need for either clones or new species. More alarmingly, these experiments mutilate, torture, and kill cats by the tens of thousands. Others die from miscarriages and even those who do survive the atrocities of the experimenters' laboratories face a lifetime of living with birth defects and other abnormalities.

"The medical argument for animal testing doesn't stand up. Even if it did, I don't think we should kill other species. We think we're so much better; I'm not sure we are," Paul McCartney once said. "I tell people, 'we've beaten into submission every animal on the face of the earth, so we are the clear winners of whatever battle is going on between the species. Couldn't we be generous?' I really do think it's time to get nice. No need to keep beating up on them. I think we've got to show that we're kind."

Kraemer and all the other moral degenerates at Texas A&M are not about to go along with any of that, however. It accordingly is imperative that both cloning and designer pets be outlawed by law.

Photos: Richard Olsenius of Texas A&M (CC), KBTX-TV of Bryan, Texas (CC's kittens), and ACRES (Madge's kittens).