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Biotech Science

A Doe, a Deer, a Deer, a Deer... 78

Posted by michael from the bambi dept.
Orne writes "Texas A&M University has announced it has successfully cloned its 5th species, the North American White-Tailed deer (see press release). Though the white-tailed deer is a common species, they hope they can use the knowledge to help repopulate endangered species of deer, like the Key West deer of Florida."
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A Doe, a Deer, a Deer, a Deer... More

A Doe, a Deer, a Deer, a Deer...

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  • As if there was any doubt (Score:5, Funny)

    by kurosawdust ( 654754 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @12:51PM (#7795790)
    This is obviously a secret plot by the automobile industry. I mean, who else really thinks we actually need more of these??
    • Damn deer - they should be developing more efficient ways to thin the herds than to artificially create more of them!

      Around here in northern Iowa, they are thicker than cattle. When my parents were young, they never saw deer (there weren't that many of them), but most farmers had cattle. My kids almost never see cattle, but deer don't even excite them - they're too common. Even worse, we're starting to see more "real" predators migrate into the area - bears, lynx, and mountain lions.
      • That may be the only positive I see about the exploding deer population...it may help enable the return of predators. The only thing close to a large predator that I've seen in Ohio over the past 10 years is a single fox, and that shouldn't ever be considered large.
        I've heard of the occasional bear and a cougar or two, but those are so rare. I would love to see the population rise. Yeah, we may loose a few poodles in the mix, but that's worth it to me!
        • I'm more concerned about loosing a couple of kids.

          Having said that, deer are more of a threat to people than any bears or cougars would hope to be. I just read that deer/car collisions cause more than $1 billion in damage per year, hurt thousands of people, and kill more than 200 per year. They're as dangerous as the Iraqi army.

          • Re:As if there was any doubt (Score:3, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Kill them all! Or at least ship them to Guantanamo Bay and make them suffer... Can't stand covardly suicide attackers like that, indiscriminantly attacking civillian population, while clearly they should only attack hunters.

            I say we start breeding and training bears and cougars to fight against this menace to American society.
          • You lose the right to say this once you start invading their territory. The threat to these animals only begins to become "important" once it affects us personally. Try to remember: while we humans have the blessing of choice, they (the predators) don't.
        • fox are all over western New York, black bears aren't that uncommon either, one was just spotted in a suburb of Rochester... "they" say there's panthers around too, but "they" are usually full of crap.
          • "they" say there's panthers around too, but "they" are usually full of crap.

            Don't bet the farm on it my friend. Here in WV, we have, because of the hills, a mixture of urban and wild country thats about as homogenized as you can imagine. And the border blend is often less than 50 feet wide!

            The game biolgists all claim we have no mountain lions, aka puma, panther, and several other local names for them.

            But I've had the pleasure (well so far its been pleasurable because it hasn't been life threatening,
      • Around here in northern Iowa, they are thicker than cattle.

        That's a thick deer. WHat are they eating, McDonald's?

    • The deer and populations of North America are not very uniform. There are states in the east that are nearly over-run with deer, and have crazy hunts to get rid of them. But in the west the populations aren't as great as they once were. In Oregon, where I live, it's not uncommon to go a couple years without seeing a legal animal. Only seeing imature deer, or no deer at all. For that reason, I have stopped hunting deer. Just because I can get a tag to hunt these animals, doesn't mean I should.

      As they also

      • You ought to take a trip to Iowa and take care of some of our deer.

        The whitetail deer is an amazingly adaptable animal - they are designed for the way that we grow crops and are thriving out here (to the point where they are a danger to the public).

        There are places down by the creeks that you can drive by at twilight and see 30 - 60 deer just standing around.

        • That is how it used to be out here. The coastal range was full of big game. But the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife had "hunter's choice" for way too many years. This ended this year I believe, so I hope the populations will comp back.

      • In Grant County (eastern Oregon) the mule deer walk around residential streets nibbling on people's gardens. Unlike the white tailed deer we had in Vermont, these deer aren't afraid of people or cars.
    • I mean, who else really thinks we actually need more of these??

      You must have missed the part that said it was Texas A&M who created the cloned deer. Here in Texas, Aggie jokes are a beloved source of humor. Here are a couple (from here [halife.com]) that are apropos:

      Two Aggies were pulling a large deer through the woods. They came across a

      Longhorn [utexas.edu] and he said, "Really nice buck you got there, but I think if you pulled him by his horns it would be a lot better than dragging him by his hind legs."

      The Aggies trie

  • Cheaper Way (Score:5, Funny)

    by Flwyd ( 607088 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @12:57PM (#7795834) Homepage
    It strikes me that there's a very cheap, efficient, and non-invasive to repopulate species of deer.

    Let them have sex.

    (When Texas A&M announced they'd cloned a cat, they said "The last thing we need is a new reproduction strategy for cats.")
    • I'm not a biologist/naturalist or any suchlike related, but last time I checked (I seem to recall) mammalian sex was an invasive procedure (so to speak).

  • Near-extinct species... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Leffe ( 686621 )
    I don't really see how they are going to save them, they'll need to find a really young/baby specimen if they want some good results, otherwise they'd only get 100 year old babies that die the day they mature...

    Why don't they put all the money they spend into something that has a future(pun semi-intended): Time travel!

    • Re:Near-extinct species... (Score:4, Informative)

      by datababe72 ( 244918 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @01:55PM (#7796423)
      Actually, they do not need to find a young animal from which to clone. Dolly, the first cloned mammal, was cloned from an adult. The "cellular age" of the clone does not equal the age of the animal from which it was cloned. However, you are correct that there is still debate about whether clones age prematurely.

      Also, there has already been work done on using clones to save endangered species (BBC story [bbc.co.uk]).

      There is also a project in Australia to clone an extinct species, the Tasmanian tiger (BBC story [bbc.co.uk]).

      There are many reasons for using cloning to save endangered species, rather than just having them mate. These include: some species are not mating fast enough to keep up, some species don't mate well in captivity, and the desire to increase genetic diversity (by cloning from a captive animal that won't breed).

      The ethics of all of this may be debatable, but like it or not, the technology is going to make this a real possibility.
      • If you have an entire population based off of clones, wouldn't that also have too little genetic diversity?

        • Re:Near-extinct species... (Score:5, Informative)

          by datababe72 ( 244918 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @03:37PM (#7797485)
          Only if all individuals in the population were cloned from the same individual, or from a small group of individuals. Actually, something similar to this happens in the wild. Its called the founder effect, and refers to the decreased genetic diversity in a population derived from only a few "founding" members.

          You are correct that this will be a problem for the already extinct species, the Tasmanian tiger, if the suceed in cloning it.

          However, this is not what they are doing to save the endangered species. The idea is to clone an individual that won't breed, and then introduce the clone into the captive breeding population. This adds diversity to the gene pool, by bringing in the genes from the non-breeder. Read the original link I posted for more info on this. Of course, this strategy assumes that there wasn't some genetic reason the original animal wouldn't breed in the first place. Perhaps he was shy? Or spent too much time reading slashdot? It seems to me that its likely he was just infertile. This is the biggest weakness of the strategy, in my opinion.
      • Telomeres regulate the age of chromosomes. Animals cloned from adults exhibit signs of advanced aging prematurely. There are transcription factors and the like in the host "egg" that are not being compensated for. Cloning healthy animals from adults may be harder than it seems.

  • Transgenic deer (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They should insert the genes for headlights and a horn into one of them. Might give the deer around here fighting chance.

  • WTF? (Score:1)

    by torpor ( 458 )
    They had deer in Florida? I guess that explains the crocodiles ... or is it alligators in Flordia? Shee-it, I forget, but oh well...

    I did not know about those deer. Interesting.

    • Re:WTF? (Score:3, Informative)

      by jabberjaw ( 683624 )
      Yes, Florida does in fact have deer. Although endangered, if you look hard enough you will find them. They are smaller than the white-tail variety and quite endangered. Find out more here [tamu.edu]
      • they're called "key deer" and are a local tourist attraction down here in hell, oops I mean south florida. they're like 1/2 the size of a normal deer.

    • Re:WTF? (Score:3, Informative)

      by YU Nicks NE Way ( 129084 )
      Actually, Florida has both alligators and crocodiles. The Florida Crocodile is an endangered species. Almost all of the known specimens are currently found in the downstream heat plume of one of the local nuclear power plants.

      (No, I'm not joking. Nobody knows why the crocs have congregated there, but it seems to work for them. Works for the humans, too: alligators don't tend to bother people if they're not bothered first. Crocodiles are considerably more aggressive, so having them stay in a place wher
      • You would not happen to be refering to the Crystal River plant would you? I have heard that mantinees also tend to congregate there as well in because of the heat plume. Seeing as crocodiles are cold blooded, I can see why they would seem to enjoy hanging around the heat plume.

        • Re:WTF? (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          For warm-blooded manatees, one would think that having heated water would reduce the amount of energy required to heat the body while swimming. The average water temperatures mid winter [noaa.gov] appear to be in the mid 60's F. Therefore, for the same amount of calorie intake, the energy that would have gone into heating can be redirected to species reproduction.

          For cold-blooded creatures, their activity is proportional to the ambient temperature of their surroundings; warmer water would allow more reproductive ac

      • Re:WTF? (Score:2, Funny)

        by torpor ( 458 )
        freakin' holy smokin' joes, you mean if i want my own crocodile super-army all i need is a convenient nuclear reactor to atract them with?

        man. there is a goddess.
        • Nah -- you need laser beams for their heads, too. The reactor's the easy part; fitting the d*ned lasers on is a real chore.

          You'd probably do better to stick with frikken sharks.
      • "Crocodiles are considerably more aggressive, so having them stay in a place [downstream heat plume of one of the local nuclear power plants] where people can be easily convinced to avoid is a good thing."

        Interesting that the fact that it is a place where aggressive crocodiles congregate isn't enough, and that the only hazardous areas we respect are those we make ourselves.

        Sounds like we need human cloning before humans become endangered.

  • Keepp (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thebatlab ( 468898 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @01:47PM (#7796355)
    Well the whole "repopulate" argument is just another way to justify what they are doing. Helping nature repopulate itself is the next logical step for humans as we tend to think we are above nature.

    Maybe if we started to realize that in nature, species die off. It happens all the time and hasn't been just recently b/c of humans. Yes, we've caused our share of destruction but has it ever been analyzed against prior species domination?

    I'm sure the sabre-toothed tiger never sat back and thought "Shit, i'm killing off these wooly mammoths like crazy! I better think of a way to encourage repopulation before they're extinct!". It just thought "Hey look! It's my next meal to ensure my survival".

    • Re:Keepp (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Lead Butthead ( 321013 )

      I'm sure the sabre-toothed tiger never sat back and thought "Shit, i'm killing off these wooly mammoths like crazy! I better think of a way to encourage repopulation before they're extinct!". It just thought "Hey look! It's my next meal to ensure my survival".

      Flawed analogy; animals hunt because they're hungry. Humans hunt for ENTERTAINMENT (mostly.) Name ONE sabre toothed tiger (or for that matter, any animal) that has deer heads mounted on their dwelling walls, and brags to others of their species of

      • Re:Keepp (Score:3, Informative)

        by ElectricRook ( 264648 )

        Name ONE sabre toothed tiger (or for that matter, any animal) that has deer heads mounted on their dwelling walls, and brags to others of their species of their "magnificant" kills...

        I guess you've never seen what coyotes do to sheep. They go in, slaughter five or ten, eat part of one. Come back tomorrow night, do the same.

        Know about the "Butcher Bird"? Catches small rodents, and insects. Impales them on barbed wire, or sharp sticks. Leaves them there.

        I guess you get your nature education from wa

        • Just something worth mentioning: the butcher bird usually does eat what it impales. I think the theory is that it's feet are not strong enough to hold the prey while the bird tears it apart. It's actually a practical thing. Frequently, the heads (or whatever part was used to hook the prey) of the critters are left behind, though. Creepy stuff.

      • Re:Keepp (Score:3, Insightful)

        by phorm ( 591458 )
        That's one part of the arguement: but there are many factors and sport killing is just one.

        Massive overhunting is another, look at how we're depleting world fish stocks. I don't think sport wishing is what's causing this.

        The other major factor is of course pollution, and destruction of habitat. Ol' Sabre may have hunted down some mammoths with tooth and nail, he didn't destroy where they lived with piles of toxic shit and clearcutting.
    • Classic example of a bad analogy. The sabre-toothed tiger wasn't an intelligent tool using globally dominant species, and it certainly did not have the capability to extrapolate the consequences of its actions. Today, we are in a position to exterminate every other species if we chose to act like a mindless predator, but we also (well, some of us) have the capacity to extrapolate what would happen if we did that. We don't need to kill deer to ensure our survival, as you seem to present, but we do need to pr
      • "Classic example of a bad analogy"

        If anything, it's typical and not classic but that' besides the point.

        "have the capacity to extrapolate what would happen if we did that"

        And what would happen? Sure we can come up with a bunch of nice statistical models but nature is an animal in itself and will constantly adapt and that's something we can't fully model. We can again give estimates based on our observations but as I'm sure you're well aware of, observing itself messes up the system you're trying to obs
    • I'm sure the sabre-toothed tiger never sat back and thought "Shit, i'm killing off these wooly mammoths like crazy! I better think of a way to encourage repopulation before they're extinct!". It just thought "Hey look! It's my next meal to ensure my survival".

      Funny you mention the sabre-tooth tiger. What's it doing nowdays? oh yeah

    • Maybe if we started to realize that in nature, species die off. It happens all the time and hasn't been just recently b/c of humans. Yes, we've caused our share of destruction but has it ever been analyzed against prior species domination?

      Hm... yes, I think it has.

      Here's [rochester.edu] a short item on mass extinction vs. background extinction rates. This guy talks about the background rate of extinction of entire marine families; other articles I ran across talked about background extinction rates of individual speci

  • Seeka Deer ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by andy666 ( 666062 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @01:56PM (#7796434)
    I think I read that the original motivation came from an interest in cloning the Seeka deer, which lives on an island off of South Carolina. This deer is strange because it has 5 stomachs, and was of interest for some medical reason.

  • Key Deer, not Key West (Score:5, Informative)

    by FroBugg ( 24957 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @02:07PM (#7796525) Homepage
    They're just called Key Deer. You might find some as far as Key West, but not many. The vast majority of them (about 600, with the entire population at 700 or 800) are found on Big Pine Key and No Name Key.

    They're very small, standing about two or two and a half feet at the shoulder and weighing maybe 80 pounds.

  • Adaptability at the cellular level? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gregwbrooks ( 512319 ) * <gregb.west-third@net> on Tuesday December 23, 2003 @03:03PM (#7797111)
    I've heard White-Tailed Deer described as a "weedy" species because they can adapt so readily to a big range of circumstances. I wonder if the weediness carries down to the genetic level and makes intra-cell mucking about (i.e., cloning) more viable?

  • just a thought (Score:2, Interesting)

    by theMerovingian ( 722983 )
    Deer will breed well in captivity, or in semi-protected forests. Not to take away from the accomplishment of cloning a deer, but it probably isn't cost effective from a conservation perspective.

    Cloning panda bears, tigers, or condors might give a more favorable biodiversity/dollars-spent-on-cloning ratio.
  • Not like we are overpopulated here in Wisconsin, they have to go clone more? Why not clone something more interesting and rare, like Linus Torvald.
    • It only makes sense. Might as well refine the cloning process on an "expendable" species, where a failed clone means little to nothing, than spend portions of a finite lifespan trying to clone a threatened or endangered species. You work most of the bugs out of cloning a similar animal, and you have a much easier time cloning a rare animal, if the process is viable.
  • Cloning won't create enough population diversity to help the species. Numerous individuals with the same genetic code will just effectively create more siblings and promote inbreeding. These labs are wasting time and money for recognition with a fake practical wrapper.
  • Now everyone can shoot a trophy buck! Before modding me down, note I am a hunter. Oh wait, isn't that automatically a -1 post?
    • Imagine a preserve, tens of thousands of acres, filled with clones (and their descendants) of the hardest hunted [deer|bear|elk] a group of hunters ever encountered... All those trophies on the walls of all those hunting lodges and homes are a treasure of genetic material waiting to be harvested and brought back to life. Most represent (in our view) the best of their species. (who wants to hang a scabby/scrawny specimen on the wall?)

      Good looking and good eatin' too!

  • Doe, a Deer, a Deer, a Beer... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ShaunC ( 203807 ) on Wednesday December 24, 2003 @06:52AM (#7801925)
    Ray, the guy who sells me beer,
    Me, the guy who drinks the beer,
    Fa, a long way to get beer,
    So, I drink a lot of beer,
    La, I can't drive after beer,
    Te, no thanks, I'm drinking beer

    Happy holiday of choice everyone... Just be sure it involves some (free) beer :)
    • Ah, this parody works much better for girls...

      Do, a beer, a real good beer,
      Re, the guy that buys the beer...
      Mi, the girl he buys the beer for,
      Fa... the distance to the bar
      So, I think I'll have a beer...
      La, la la la la la la...
      Ti, no thanks I've got a beer,
      and that brings us back to Do!
  • mmmmm.... backstrap ad venison sausage.....
  • Clearly, scientists are going to continue attempting to clone non-human species. It's not difficult to imagine assembling a kind of clone collection, where the material (yeah, I'm not a biologist) necessary to create an arbitrary number any of the filed species would be stored.

    This raises the question of the value of conservation to preserve species. Don't get me wrong: I think that conserving land to preserve species is valuable and important. However, if it is possible to recreate a member of a species a

  • Doe, a deer, a female deer [allthelyrics.com]
    Ray, a drop of golden sun
    Me, a name I call myself
    Far, a long, long way to run...

    A good song, for the musically illiterate.

  • May be a blessing after all! George Bush promised but could not do it! This could be the means!

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