Stoic Little CC May Have Graced This Vale of Tears for Only Eighteen Brief Years but the Moral Cunundrum That Surrounds the Cloning of Cats Lives on after Her

A Mature CC in Her Later Years

"CC was the biggest story out of A&M ever and still is, as far as international research is concerned. Every paper and magazine had pictures of her in it. She was one of the biggest accomplishments of my career."
-- Duane Kraemer

All living creatures are mortal and that includes clones. Even so, it came as quite a jolt when Texas A&M University (TAMU) in College Station announced on March 4th that CC, the world's first successfully cloned cat, had "passed away" a day earlier on March 3rd.

That was especially the case in light of the fact that she not only had recently celebrated her eighteenth birthday on December 22nd but that as late as January 2nd the university had informed KBTX-TV of Bryan, seven kilometers north of College Station, that she was "still living a healthy life." (See "World's First Cloned Cat Celebrates Eighteen Years of Life in College Station.")

The official cause of her death has been listed as kidney failure but there can be little doubt that she was intentionally killed off by her progenitor, Duane Kraemer, and his wife Shirley who had adopted her at the tender age of six-months. After all, it is well established that very few individuals are willing to go to the trouble and expense of caring for an ailing cat and that goes doubly for bloodsucking capitalists such as those who rule the roost at TAMU with their gargantuan US$13.5 billion endowment.

Even though kidney disease is very much a life and death matter for any cat, CC's life could have been extended through, inter alia, diuresis, dialysis, renal replacement therapy, and chemotherapy. (See Cat Defender posts of January 16, 2007, October 11, 2013, September 26, 2013, and April 24, 2019 entitled, respectively, "Dying of Kidney Failure, a Nine-Year-Old Cat Named Sammy Is Shown Compassion by an Unexpected Friend," "Former Halifax Mayoral Hopeful Tuxedo Stan Is Killed Off by His Owner after Chemotherapy Fails to Halt the Onslaught of Renal Lymphoma," "Heroic Hermione Is Holding Her Own Despite Losing a Kidney to a Botched Sterilization Two Years Ago," and "The Life, Times, and Tragic Demise of a Supermarket Cat: Brutus of Morrisons, 2009-2017.")

Furthermore, since Kraemer and his colleagues at TAMU were clever enough to have created her providing her with a new kidney would have been a piece of cake for them. Fred Petrick and Tony Lacari of parts unknown in Virginia were willing to have gone the extra mile for their beloved Arthur but the Kraemers were unwilling to extend the same courtesy to CC. (See the Daily Mail, November 5, 2015,"Couple Rescue (sic) Stray Cat...So They Can Use It for a $15,000 Transplant to Save Their Pet with Fatal Kidney Disease.")

Even if the Kraemers were to cheap to have availed themselves of any of those options, they certainly could have placed Copy Cat, as CC also was known, on a special diet and a daily regimen of subcutaneous fluids. "I've seen even very sick cats, cats who needed hospitalization in the beginning do really well on home care with an owner who was willing to give it a try," Miami veterinarian Patty Khuly told the San Francisco Chronicle on August 18, 2009. (See "Caring for a Cat Whose Kidneys Have Failed.") "What makes the difference in how well a cat with kidney failure does is not how sick they are, or how bad their kidney values are on a blood test. It's the attitude of the owner."

Moreover, Khuly insists that such intervention can be anything but a flash in the pan. "Many of these cats who were on the brink of death can be brought back with supportive care," she continued. "Not only brought back for days or weeks or months, but years. You just don't know unless you try."

Another alternative would have been for the Kraemers to have surrendered custody of CC in favor of either someone or facility that was willing to have prolonged her life. Regrettably, they were dead set against that from the outset.

"We'll never part with them (CC and her kittens)," Shirley vowed in a December 13, 2006 press release from TAMU. (See "Copy Cat: First Cloned Cat Produces Three Kittens.") "They will always remain with us or other family members."

If the Kraemers had been willing to have looked upon CC through the prism of anything other than that of a couple of misers unwilling to let go of so much as a solitary nugget from their gold mine, they easily could have fobbed off her continued care upon the Stevenson Companion Animal Life-Care Center at TAMU where, at last count, twenty cats and seventeen dogs are now living out their final days. (See KAGS-TV of Bryan, November 23, 2017, "Texas A&M's Stevenson Center Is a 'Retirement Home' for Pets.")

The primary motivational factor behind the Kraemers' callousness very well could have been the petit fait that she was worth more to them dead than alive. That line of reasoning is buttressed by the failure of both them and TAMU to have disclosed what was done with CC's remains.

That in turn leads to speculation that her organs were cut out and examined with DNA samples harvested for use in future cloning projects. CC accordingly has been denied not only a fitting memorial service but, most outrageously of all, even a decent burial.

It additionally is entirely conceivable that nothing at all ailed her and that the Kraemers simply had grown tired of caring for her and thus had her life snuffed out. An independent necropsy might have shone some light on the matter but it is a sure bet that none was performed.

CC with Duane Kraemer When She Was Six Months Old

Besides, individuals such as Kraemer who have chosen to play God are beyond the reach of all morality and law. "To this very day I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter," Dr. Moreau candidly admitted to Edward Prendick in H.G. Wells' 1896 novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau. "The study of nature makes a man at least as remorseless as nature."

Regardless of either his true feelings or exactly how that CC met her Waterloo, a facade of fidelity had to be maintained. "CC was a great cat and real joy. She was part of the family and very special to us," is how that he chose to eulogize her in a March 4th press release from TAMU. (See "World's First Cloned Cat Dies.") "We will miss her every day."

There possibly could be some measure of truth in those declarations of undying love but just as questions remain concerning CC's death, so too do legitimate issues regarding the quality of life that she was afforded by the Kraemers and TAMU. From what little information that has leaked out in the media, it is known that she spent her entire life confined to a specially constructed two-story shed in the Kraemers' backyard in Bryan.

She thus was allotted only that small measure of human contact given her by the Kraemers and other scientists at TAMU. Since they surely were not about to allow such a valuable feline to roam she sans doute was locked up day ad night in that tiny shed and thus denied the society of other cats as well.

The only known exception to that cruel regimen occurred in 2006 when she briefly was allowed the company of a tom named Smokey that Kraemer had purchased for the sole purpose of being her mate. From that ultimately successful union, Tim, Zip, and Tess were born in the autumn of that same year.

A fourth kitten, an unnamed female, was stillborn. Since females are capable of giving birth by the time that they reach the age of one, it is a bit odd that Kraemer waited so long in order to breed her.

It accordingly is feared that she was perhaps repeatedly subjected to hormonal treatments and that multiple pregnancies ended in miscarriages. (See Cat Defender post of January 5, 2007 entitled "The World's First Cloned Cat, CC, Finally Gives Birth to Three Healthy Kittens at Age Five.")

As far as it is known, Tim, Zip, and Tess are still alive but cruelly confined to that wretched shed. Furthermore, such a patently inhumane living arrangement exposes the Kraemers' and TAMU's declarations of undying love for CC and her kittens to be nothing more than cruel and outrageous lies. That is because absolutely nobody who cared anything about a cat would sentence it to spend its entire life outdoors locked up in a cage.

To pretend otherwise is both absurd and laughable. Au contraire, true lovers of the species want their companions inside with them. Specifically, they want them to eat with them, sleep with them, and even to interrupt them when they are trying to work.

The inescapable conclusion to be derived from all of that is that the Kraemers kept CC, Tim, Zip, and Tess at a distance and confined them as such because they viewed them as prized guinea pigs and nothing more. Once that is understood it does not take much imagination to realize that CC's life -- and by extension those of her kittens -- could not possibly have amounted to much more than an endless series of pokes, probes, and all sots of diabolical intrusions and experimentation.

In addition to all of those terrible woes, she had to contend with the elements. Although Bryan enjoys a rather mild climate where the average daily temperature ranges from a high of 80°F to a low of 58°F with forty inches of rain annually, it nonetheless has its fair share of both cold and hot days. For instance, November through February features overnight lows of between 40°F and 49°F whereas daytime highs between May and October range from 82°F to a scorching 96°F.

Whereas it is not known if CC's jail cell was either heated in the wintertime or cooled during the summertime, the latter measure would likely have been mandatory given that almost any cat can go into distress once the thermometer climbs much above 85°F. Even if that were indeed the case, it is difficult to see how that any artificial environment could be healthy for a cat considering that they are not even suitable for humans.

Aside from those issues, CC would have suffered from a severe lack of space in which to exercise and the debilitating boredom that afflicts all laboratory animals. Diet would have been another problem, especially if the Kraemers had insisted upon only feeding her cheap kibble. Like most people, cats are gourmands who crave variety.

CC with "Man of Science" Mark Westhusin

After shedding a few crocodile tears concerning CC's demise it did not take Kraemer long to reveal his true feelings. "CC was the biggest story out of A&M ever and still is, as far as international research is concerned," he boasted in the same press release. "Every paper and magazine had pictures of her in it. She was one of the biggest accomplishments of my career."

Given that outside of the cozy and moneyed confines of TAMU he is hardly a household name, it would be interesting to know what other devilry that he has been up to over the years that even remotely compares with his creation of CC.

Earlier on January 2nd he had let slip that an appreciation of CC's intrinsic value as a cat was anything but the first thing on his mind. "My favorite thing (about her) is that she's the first of cloned pets," he preened to KBTX-TV in the article cited supra. "There was a lot of interest in her and there has been for many years."

His colleague at TAMU's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Services (CVM), Mark Westhusin, did not waste so much as a single syllable on sentiment but right from the get-go he let the world know in no uncertain terms that the only things that concern him are himself and science. "CC's passing makes me reflect on my own life as much as hers," he said in TAMU's March 4th press release. "Our work with CC was an important seed to plant to keep the science and ideas and imagination moving forward."

He is in fact so self-absorbed that he is unable to tell the difference between altruism and naked self-interest.  "Our research has always been driven by trying to improve the lives of animals and humans," this megalomaniac had the audacity to tell the student newspaper, The Battalion, on April 25, 2017. (See "A&M Cloning Seeks to Improve Human Life.")

Much like a genetically identical clone herself, CVM Dean Eleanor M. Green followed hot in Kraemer's and Westhuin's  footsteps with more of the same unctuous grunting. "We in the CVM are saddened by the passing of CC," she added perfunctorily. "The entire CVM community mourns her loss, as all of Texas A&M cared deeply about her as a member of the Aggie family, and especially for the Kraemers for whom CC was a beloved pet for eighteen years."

It did not take her long to get over her grief, however, and to commence babbling about science just like Kraemer and Westhusin. "As the first cloned cat, CC advanced science by helping all in the scientific community understand that cloning can be effective in producing a healthy animal," she declared. "While she lived a long, normal, and happy life, CC was extraordinary in what she represented to the Kraemers, the CVM, and science as a whole."

The author of the press release itself, Megan Myers, underscored that point. "She (CC) proved to the world that cloned animals can live the same full, healthy lives as non-cloned animals, including being able to produce healthy offspring," she crowed like a bantam rooster.

Kraemer wholeheartedly concurred. "When CC was first produced, it was thought that clones died young," he told KBTX-TV on January 2nd "She has proved that not to be the case."

The arguments advanced by Green, Kraemer, Westhusin, and Myers are sickeningly typical of the intellectual snobbery and patented dishonesty that have always prevailed on college campuses. C'est-à-dire, the high-strutting and loudmouthed eggheads have a long history of routinely passing off all sorts of outrageous prejudices and special interests as the gospel truth to a gullible public. They then beat a hasty retreat back to their laboratories and classrooms where their money, exalted positions, and pretentious titles shelter them from just about all moral and legal scrutiny.

In the end, all that the world is left with are their vacuous assertions of authority which are only rarely supported by either morality, logic, or bona fide empirical data that has not been cherry-picked. Position, power, and money are thus all that matter.

In this particular instance, given that TAMU always has so jealousy guarded the privacy of CC and her kittens, Green and Kraemer's claim that clones "live long, normal, and happy lives" is merely an unproven assertion. Even if their tenures upon this earth may have been extended, few animal welfare activists would ever buy into the notion that any animal cruelly confined to a laboratory for life could ever by happy.

Secondly and as far as it is known, no individual or organization has yet been able to muster the hubris to assert that the lives of the dozens of cats sacrificed in order to have created CC were enhanced by the cloning process. For instance, in her case eighty-seven cloned embryos were surgically removed from donor cats and implanted in eight surrogate mothers.

CC with Two of Her Three Kittens That Were Born in 2006

The best that Kraemer and his subalterns were able to get out of all those debaucheries were one miscarriage and the live birth of CC. Once all was said and done, CC's donor turned out to have been a domestic calico named Rainbow whereas her surrogate mother was a tabby named Allie. (See T. Shin, Duane Kraemer, et al., Nature Magazine, February 14, 2002, "A Cat Cloned by Nuclear Transplantation.")

All of the dozens of cats involved in this lengthy process were repeatedly subjected to invasive procedures, painful hormonal treatments, and miscarriages. The mortality rate of the clones was off the charts and it is highly unlikely that any of the egg donors, sperm suppliers, surrogate mothers, and various other felines that were used for assorted purposes, such as nurturing, ever made it out of TAMA's laboratories alive.

Clones are not created out of thin air; on the contrary, they are the end product of countless atrocities committed against hundreds, if not indeed thousands, of perfectly healthy laboratory cats. It is even doubtful that any of them were permitted to have experienced so much as a moment of peace, a jot of freedom, or even a halfway decent meal.

All of the processes that they were subjected to were cruel, painful, unconscionable, and barbaric. They additionally violated every anti-cruelty law ever written.

As best it could be determined, the first mammal to have been successfully cloned was a sheep in Scotland named Dolly back in 1996. Either shortly before or after that heinous crime against nature TAMU got into the business of cloning animals and since then it has successfully created horses, pigs, goats, cows, and deer. Its windfall from all that pimping and whoring for meat and milk producers, the pharmaceutical companies, and other serial abusers and exploiters of animals never has been revealed but it surely must rival that of the haul raked in by bankers, Wall Street tycoons, Third World warlords, and South American drug lords

TAMU's involvement in the seedy business of cloning cats began rather differently and, not surprisingly, has not proven to be anywhere nearly as lucrative as its undeclared war on farm animals. As the story goes, back in 1998 John Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix, offered up somewhere between US$10-20 million to any facility that could successfully clone his beloved Border Collie and Siberian Husky-mix, Missy.

In what might be termed as an intramural initiative, TAMU quickly took the bait like a hungry rat after a chunk of fresh cheddar. In doing so, it never publicly expressed any reservations whatsoever about aligning itself with an institution that just might be the world's most crooked degree mill.

For example, although the University of Phoenix charges a staggering US$15,000 a year in tuition, it only boasts a minuscule graduation rate of between seventeen and twenty per cent. Plus, although its students are the nation's largest beneficiaries of the G.I. Bill and Pell Grants, they nonetheless still owe the feds an astonishing US$35 billion in unpaid student loans. On top of all of that, the school has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars as the result of its dishonest marketing tactics as well as for other assorted violations of law.

TAMU veterinarians Westhusin and Charles Long quickly signed on to what became known as the Missyplicity Project as did Lou Hawthorne of Genetic Savings and Clone (GSC) in Sausalito. Their efforts ultimately came to naught, however, and that in turn led Sperling to take his business to Hwang Woo-Suk of Seoul National University who in 2005 had successfully cloned an Afghan Hound named Snuppy. (See Cat Defender post of August 15, 2005 entitled "South Koreans Clone the World's First Dog; Vivisectors and Stem Cell Proponents See $$$.")

During the interim, Missy had died on July 6, 2002 at the age of fifteen. Her DNA had been saved, however, and later in 2007 Hwang successfully created, not one, but three clones of her.

Even though it had failed miserably in its efforts to clone Missy, TAMU had far better luck with cats. Even so, its stunning success with CC ultimately proved to have been a Pyrrhic victory in that there was not enough money in the scheme in order to satisfy the gargantuan greed of its professors.

As far as it is known therefore, the university's foray into the cat-cloning thicket began and ended with CC. Even GSC later closed its doors in 2006 after it had been able to sell only two of the six cats that it had successfully cloned.

That was in spite of having dropped its asking price from US$50,000 to US$32,000. Regrettably, it is not known either what ultimately became of its quartet of unclaimed clones or even if they are still alive today. (See Cat Defender post of October 16, 2006 entitled "Unable to Turn a Profit, a California Cat-Cloning Company Goes Out of Business.")

Rainbow, Allie, and CC

Few, if any, cat advocates shed any tears when the combination cat-cloning operation and gene storage facility finally went bust. "It was just wrong on so many levels to start this business. There were ethical problems. There were serious animal welfare problems," Sue Leary of the American Anti-Vivisection Society in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, testified to the San Francisco Chronicle on October 11, 2006. (See "Pet Cloning Business Closes...Not Commercially Viable.") "They were exploiting people who had lost a pet and were grieving. It was an impossible promise that they were making."

Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States in Washington was even blunter. "It's no surprise the demand for cloned pets is nonexistent, and we're very pleased that Genetic Savings and Clone's attempt to run a cloning pet store was a spectacular flop," he gloated to the Chronicle. "For every successful clone dozens fail and die prematurely, have physical abnormalities, and face chronic pain and suffering. Cloning is at odds with basic animal welfare considerations."

His exuberance turned out to have been short-lived in that ViaGen Pets of Cedar Park, twenty-six kilometers northwest of Austin, soon took on the mantle previously vacated by GSC. Although the company was originally founded in 2003 in order to clone horses and livestock, since 2015 it has cloned an undetermined number of cats.

For instance, on its web site it displays photographs of more than two dozen of its clients but the vast majority of them are cats that are waiting to be reproduced. The holdup is, most likely, attributable to the US$35,000 price tag that it charges for this service. In the meantime, it is continuing to rake in a pretty penny by storing feline DNA.

"ViaGen Pets is committed to the health and well-being of each and every dog and cat with whom we work. That commitment is the foundation of every effort we make," the firm declares on its web site. "Our team includes leading scientists, and we believe that moving the promising and exciting area of animal genetic research forward will benefit all animals."

Although it is remotely conceivable that at some future date the cloning of cats might become commercially viable, there simply is not any way of getting around the unspeakable abuse and cruelty that the procedure inflicts upon both the clones themselves and the myriad of cats that are remorselessly sacrificed in order to create them.

In addition to those primary concerns, there are a host of secondary issues that argue against cloning. First and foremost, some people not only fervently believe that the world already has too many cats but they are taking matters into their hands in an effort to remedy the situation.

In furtherance of their perverted agenda, Animal Control officers and shelters in the United States roundup and systematically exterminate millions of them each year; worldwide the death toll is significantly greater. In Kraemer's city of residence, both the Bryan Animal Shelter and the Aggieland Humane Society kill hundreds, if not indeed thousands, of cats each year.

They may claim to be working toward becoming no-kill facilities but the killing continues unabated. (See KBTX-TV, January 24, 2017, "City of Bryan Working to Save More Animals" and the Aggieland Humane Society's Newsletter, Spring of 2017, "Almost There: Building a No-Kill Community.")

Cops also kill cats as do ornithologists, wildlife biologists, environmentalists, and gardeners. Clearly, the millions of dollars devoted to the cloning of cats could be much more productively spent outlawing the killing of all cats and the jailing of violators of such an edict.

Secondly, with there being such an acute shortage of affordable and competent veterinary care, it is nothing short of disgraceful that TAMU chose to waste time and money creating more of them as opposed to attending to the dire needs of those that already exist. For instance, if it were only willing to sterilize cats on demand, shelters, cops, and other cretins would have significantly fewer of them in order to kill and abuse.

Far from being willing to do even that much, not single veterinary school in the country is willing to treat sick and injured cats unless they are paid in advance and handsomely at that. (See Cat Defender post of March 19, 2014 entitled "The Cheap and Greedy Moral Degenerates at PennVet Extend Their Warmest Christmas Greetings to an Impecunious, but Preeminently Treatable, Cat Via a Jab of Sodium Pentobarbital.")

Moreover, all veterinary schools indoctrinate their graduates into believing that killing cats is not only morally acceptable but a good way to line their pockets as well. (See Cat Defender post of April 8, 2018 entitled "A Rare Behind the Scenes Glimpse at the Ruthless Murders of Two Cats by an Indiana Veterinarian Exposes All Those Who Claim That Lethal Injections Are Humane to Be Barefaced Liars.")

TAMU Condemned Bisbee to Die All Alone

Although the practice of veterinary medicine even on its best days amounts to little more than a license to kill, practitioners such as Kristen Lindsey of the Washington Animal Clinic in Brenham, fifty-three kilometers south of College Station, and Kelly Folse of River Ridge, seventeen kilometers west of New Orleans, have proven themselves to be incapable of confining their killing urges to office hours. (See the Daily Mail,  April 17, 2015, " 'Vet of the Year' Fired after Posing Holding a Dead Pet Cat She Killed with a Bow and Arrow after 'Hunting It Down in her Backyard'," and The Advocate of New Orleans, February 22, 2018, "River Ridge Veterinarian Charged in Alleged Shooting of Neighbor's Dog over Barking.")

As if all of that were not bad enough to sink the entire profession, the practice of veterinary medicine is largely a fraud. For instance, an owner can fork over US$10,000 or more on supportive care and diagnostic testing and not even receive so much as an explanation as to what ails his cat; rather, all that he receives in return is a dead cat.

Most veterinarians are capable of vaccinating a cat but that is about all. They even botch such simple procedures as sterilization, the implantation of microchips, and the repair of broken limbs.

Thirdly, cloning makes a mockery of the sanctity of life and degrades cats by reducing them to little more than a jumble of nameless organic matter, such as eggs, sperm, and hormones, to be manipulated at will. TAMU and its confederates at the United States Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska, Smithfield Farms in the Virginia city of the same name, and countless other entities that are known collectively as Big Ag have already reduced all farm animals to little more than slabs of meat, bottles of milk, and cartons of eggs and through cloning they are attempting to pull off the same leger de main with cats. (See The New York Times, January 19, 2015, "United States Research Lab Lets Livestock Suffer in Quest for Profit" and the Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2019, "As Pigs Await Slaughter at Farmer John, Strangers Offer Water, Love and Comfort to the Doomed.")

Kraemer, Westhusin, Green, and their misbegotten ilk can rant about science and wanting to do good in this world until the cows come home but it is all a load of bull. The only things that any of them care about are ego aggrandizement, fame, money, and the thrills that they derive from abusing, torturing, and killing animals.

Every bit as horrific as they may be, the crimes that professors commit against cats in their laboratories are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. For example, some of them tell lies in order to inveigle unsuspecting owners into lending them the services of their cats so that they can use them in order to collect data on their predatory habits. They then use that data in order to justify their feline extermination campaigns.

Others, such as Paul Skrade of Upper Iowa University in Fayette, do not even bother to ask permission; rather, they just steal them outright. (See KWWL-TV of Waterloo, October 10, 2019, "Pet Cat Becomes Part of Research Project When Accidentally Trapped.")

Secondly, quite a few of them actually take up arms against the species and do their own killing. (See Cat Defender posts of April 27, 2006 and November 18, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Cat-Killing Monster Les Underhill and the Moneygrubbing Robben Island Museum Resume Slaughtering Cats in South Africa" and "A Clever Devil at the University of Adelaide Boasts That He Has Discovered the Achilles' Heel of Cats with His Invention of Robotic Grooming Traps as the Thoroughly Evil Australians' All-Out War Against the Species Enters Its Final Stages.")

Thirdly, even when they are not actually stealing, killing, and abusing cats, the professors amuse themselves by libeling and slandering them to the hilt. (See Cat Defender posts of March 3, 2006, July 18, 2011, and October 9, 2015 entitled, respectively, "A Cat-Hating Professor at UC-Davis and the BBC Call for the Extermination of Seventy-Eight Million Feral Felines," "Evil Professors Have Transformed College Campuses into Hotbeds of Hatred Where Cats Routinely Are Vilified, Horribly Abused, and Systematically Killed," and "A Lynch Mob Comprised of Dishonest Eggheads from the University of Lincoln Issues Another Scurrilous Broadside Against Cats by Declaring That They Do Not Need Guardians in Order to Safeguard Their Fragile Lives.")

Fourthly, many universities do not hesitate to liquidate their homeless felines. That is in spite of the fact that a lion's share of them were abandoned on campus by their coeds. (See Cat Defender posts of September 11, 2006, February 12, 2007, and July 31, 2008 entitled, respectively, "The Selfish and Brutal Eggheads at Central Michigan University Target a Colony of Feral Cats for Defamation and Eradication," "The God-Fearing Baptists at Eastern University Kill Off Their Feral Cats on the Sly while Their Students Are Away on Spring Break," and "Cal State Long Beach Is Using the Presence of Coyotes as a Pretext in Order to Get Rid of Its Feral Cats.")


Fifthly, some colleges even allow their students to get away with not only killing cats but dining on them as well.  (See Cat Defender posts of September 22, 2005 and August 25, 2008 entitled, respectively, "College Students in South Africa Cook a Cat to Death in a Microwave Oven" and "Danish Journalism Students Procure the Corpse of a Murdered Cat and Then Skin, Cook, and Eat It in Order to Promote Their Careers.")

Sixthly, being every bit as greedy as the day is long, the degree mills gobble up every cent that their alumni bequeath to them while simultaneously ignoring the tragic plight of the cats that they have left behind. (See Cat Defender post of June 9, 2008 entitled "A Small Pennsylvania College Greedily Snatches Up an Alumnus' Multimillion-Dollar Bequest but Turns Away His Cat, Princess.")

Seventhly, some schools even fire employees who have the temerity to show so much as an ounce of compassion for down-and-out cats. (See Cat Defender post of June 14, 2006 entitled "A Kindhearted Dairyman, Sacked for Feeding Feral Cats, Files a $20 Million Lawsuit Against Cornell University.")

Ashley Bullerdick with Cinnabun and Her Recently Born Clone

Even those cats that the professors, students, and administrators tolerate on campus usually come to tragic ends. For example, the eggheads at the University of St. Andrews heartlessly allowed Hamish McHamish to sleep out in the rain, cold, and darkness for more than a decade until he finally came down with a chest cold and ultimately ended up being whacked by his absentee owner. (See Cat Defender posts of June 20, 2014 and October 18, 2014 entitled, respectively, "St. Andrews Honors Hamish McHamish with a Bronze Statue but Does Not Have the Decency, Love, and Compassion in Order to Provide Him with a Warm, Secure, and Permanent Home" and "Hamish McHamish's Derelict Owner Reenters His Life after Fourteen Years of Abject Neglect Only to Have Him Killed Off after He Contracts a Preeminently Treatable Common Cold.")

The University of Edinburgh so neglected Jordan that one day he disappeared without so much as a trace. (See Cat Defender post of October 3, 2017 entitled "Jordan, the University of Edinburgh's Library Cat, Disappears into Thin Air but No One Either Cares, Knows, or Is Willing to Say What Happened to Him.")

After shamelessly condemning her to eke out a hardscrabble existence outdoors for nearly a decade, Plymouth College of Art in Devon unforgivably allowed the truly beautiful PCAT to end up as a victim of roadkill.  (See Cat Defender post of November 21, 2012 entitled "Officials at Plymouth College of Art Should Be Charged with Gross Negligence and Animal Cruelty in the Tragic Death of the School's Longtime Resident Feline, PCAT.")

At Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) in Aachen, the big brains stood idly by and did absolutely nothing as their students fed King Loui I a daily fare of garbage and his guardian from Hell exposed him to the perils of the city's clogged and extremely dangerous streets until it all became too much for him to overcome. (See Cat Defender posts of July 12, 2017 and September 15, 2017 entitled, respectively, "A Death Watch Has Begun for King Loui I Who Has Been Abandoned to Wander the Dangerous Streets of Aachen by His Derelict Owner and the Ingrates at RWTH" and "King Loui I's Days of Roaming the Perilous Streets of Aachen Come to a Sad End Shortly after He Is Diagnosed with Inoperable Throat Cancer.")

CC, and all the felines sacrificed in order to create her, is far from being the only one that TAMU has exploited, abused, and neglected over the years. Most prominently, it heartlessly allowed the school's unofficial mascot, Bisbee, to live out in the elements without doing very much in order to alleviate his plight.

While it is true that the Aggie Feral Cat Alliance of Texas did feed, water, and  medicate him, he had neither a home nor anyone to turn to in his hour of greatest need. As a consequence, he was forced into slinking off all alone to a crawl space underneath the Biological Sciences Building East where his lifeless body was accidentally discovered by a maintenance worker on July 19, 2012.

As was it the case with the passing of CC, students, professors, administrators, and even then President R. Bowen Loftin said all the customary things following his death and there was even talk about honoring him with some type of a memorial. As best it could be determined, however, that project never got off the ground.

Besides, what possible good could it ever have done Bisbee? Even if it had been willing to have put some money and effort with its palaver, TAMU never could have repaid him for the years of love, companionship, and friendship that he so freely bestowed upon all those who were fortunate enough to have known him anymore than it could have atoned for its years of so hideously neglecting him and his needs. (See Cat Defender post of October 15, 2012 entitled "Texas A&M Ushers In a New Academic Year but Things Are Just Not Quite the Same Without Its Beloved Bisbee.")

The picture is clear: cats and colleges are a bad mix under all circumstances. That is to say, the intellectual community has shown itself to be capable of only defaming, exploiting, neglecting, abusing, and killing them. Consequently, compassion, acting responsibly toward them, and exhibiting an abiding respect for the sanctity of all feline life are Greek to its members.

In conclusion, it must be admitted that there is not any conceivable way of ever compensating for the loss of a beloved cat. Over time the pain becomes somewhat easier to bear but it never completely goes away.

In many respects such a loss is a far more difficult burden to bear than that of losing lovers, family members, and friends. The reason for that is to be found in the petit fait that a cat's love is complete, unconditional, and anything but fickle.

Unlike with humans, there are not any negatives in loving a cat, other than that its allotted time on this earth is so terribly brief. "What greater love than that of a cat?" is how that Charles Dickens once summed up the matter.

Both CC and Her Reflection Are Gone Forever  

With that being the case, there likely will always be a market for cloned cats; it is going to be small one but it will exist. For example, Bryan and Ashley Bullerdick of Charlotte recently had their nineteen-year-old companion, Cinnabun, cloned by ViaGen Pets and they are absolutely thrilled to death with her replacement.

"This was a special cat from when we were newlyweds, our kids grew up with the cat, she was important to us," Bryan told the New York Post on June 27, 2019. (See "North Carolina Couple Paid $25K to Clone Their Beloved Pet Cat.") "She slept next to my wife's head on the pillow every night. If we had a chance of getting another cat like that, we had to try."

Cloning is nonetheless a sticky wicket and it is difficult to get the details right in that not all clones even resemble their originals let alone have similar personalities. In this case, however, ViaGen apparently got it right in that Cinnabun's clone also sleeps on top of Ashley's pillow just as the genuine article used to do before her death.

What the Bollerdicks may or may not be aware of is that such seemingly inexplicable behavior is also common in the kittens of cats that are naturally born. For example, toms who never even knew their fathers will sometimes not only look like them but possess many of their mannerisms and character traits.

The similarities are sometimes so striking as to be spooky. It is almost as if the original cat has returned to life as a newborn kitten.

It therefore is in magical and unexplainable occurrences of that sort that an unconsolable owner often finds both the will and strength to go on living. Such events also are an affirmation of not only life itself but of its inexhaustibility.

So long as so much as a smidgen of life remains, an individual must persevere. If he is able to get through the really tough times, the depression eventually gives way to a glimmer of hope and deliverance is found in either a homeless waif or on death row at a shelter.

An owner will love the new arrival with all his heart until, one day, it too will either die or mysteriously disappear. The black clouds will then once again descend upon him and obliterate the life-giving rays of the sun. There cannot be any quitting however because there simply are too many cats anxiously waiting to be rescued and loved.

Although sterilization certainly has its place, it is far preferable for true fans of the species to allow their beloved companions to selectively breed. That way they are able to not only recognize the resemblances but also to enjoy the company of the descendants of the one that has departed.

That is a far better alternative to cloning which is not only cruel but wasteful and expensive to boot. Keeping down the number of cats that one cares for to a manageable level can be challenging but it is definitely doable if an individual's heart is big and his love is sufficiently strong enough.

TAMU has not made available any information as to what became of Allie, Rainbow, and Smokey. Likewise, it has been equally tight-lipped concerning the activities and quality of life enjoyed by Tim, Zip, and Tess.

Even the eighteen years that CC spent on this earth were shrouded in secrecy in that the world that exists outside of TAMU's laboratories was told almost nothing about her. As a consequence she, sadly, will be primarily remembered by her photographs.

The world therefore hardly knew her at all and now she is gone forever. Despite all the myriad of problems associated with cloning itself, in the end it is impossible to conclude that this world would have been a better place if it had never known that she once had existed or if it had not been able to have gazed upon her beautiful face.

Photos: KBTX-TV (CC in her later years and with two of her kittens), TAMU (CC with Kraemer, and looking at her reflection in a mirror), The Battalion (CC with Westhusin), Nature Magazine (Rainbow, Allie, and CC), Facebook (Bisbee), and Bryan Bollerdick (Ashley Bollerdick with Cinnabun and her clone).