Perhaps even more awesome is the fact that Bessie will be birthing an endangered Asian gaur named Noah who was cloned from a skin cell taken from a deceased gaur. Standing over six feet high at the shoulders and weighing as much as 2,200 pounds, gaurs are considered the largest of wild cattle. Unfortunately, these massive, hump-backed bovines are quickly disappearing. For decades, the survival of the gaur species has been threatened by hunters who kill these one-ton animals for sport. Young Noah offers perhaps the best hope scientists currently have at preserving and possibly repopulating the rare gaur species.
Many scientists acknowledge that cloning invites a host of ethical and scientific dilemmas.
In this case the controversy is exacerbated by the fact that the animal being cloned is heading toward extinction. Whatever's causing a species to decline, whether it's exploitation or destruction of a habitat, would continue to put that species at risk of being exterminated. It is feared that even if scientists could encourage species revitalization through cloning, many of the cloned animals whose natural habitat has been destroyed would only be able to survive in zoos. Some critics assert that if cloning endangered species becomes commonplace, herds of animals with identical genetic compositions could inhabit the earth. These cloned animals would lack the genetic diversity critical for their survival, and would be severely compromised in their ability to adapt to new evolutionary pressures.