Equine-Reproduction.com's Kathy St.Martin
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Don Jacklin wanted to repeat his racing success by duplicating Taz. Unfortunately, breeding mules is a dead end proposition. The product of crossing a female horse and a male donkey, the resulting hybrid, a mule, is usually sterile. Consequently, Mr. Jacklin needed to look for an alternative if he wished to use Taz in his breeding program. It was at this point that he contacted Northwest Equine Reproduction Laboratory in Moscow, Idaho. Working together with the University of Idaho, and Utah State University, Dr. Vanderwall headed up a team of scientists and geneticists to attempt what, to date, had never been done successfully.
On May 29, 2003, the University of Idaho announced the successful cloning and resulting birth of Idaho Gem. Born on May 4th, 2003, Idaho Gem is the result of the cloning of a 45 day embryo which was the product of breeding Taz' sire and dam. The University is still awaiting the arrival of two other clones that were produced from the same embryonic tissue.
The first clone every produced was a tadpole in 1952, created using embryonic cells. Cloning made headlines in 1997 when Scottish scientists created "Dolly", a Finn Dorset sheep. Dolly's creation was significant in that she was the first mammal cloned from the cell of an adult animal. Since Dolly, researchers have cloned a number of large and small animals including sheep, goats, cows, mice, pigs, cats, rabbits, and a gaur.
