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 Technology News | March 2008 
Bullfighting World Sees Double as Breeders Clone Their Best Studs
 Associated Press
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Guadalix de la Sierra, Spain - Two breeders of fighting bulls plan to clone their best studs.
It's an unprecedented marriage of modern technology and the Spanish-speaking world's beloved, ancient pastime.
Victoriano del Rio is a fifth-generation Spanish breeder of fighting bulls. His bull Alcalde sires up to 40 calves a year, most of them top fighters.
Jose Manuel Fernandez is a Mexican rancher who wants to replicate his aging stud Zalamero.
Fernandez is so bullish on cloning he envisions a future in which an afternoon at the arena might involve six genetically identical twins gleaned from the same beast.
Both breeders have hired the Austin-based cloning company ViaGen for the job. The technique is essentially the same one used in 1996 to copy the sheep Dolly, the world's first cloned mammal.
A ViaGen team will come to Spain in a few weeks to collect skin samples from Alcalde and take them back to Texas to start preparing embryos. Fernandez's endeavor is at a more advanced stage. He says his embryos are already growing and will be implanted in cows this month in Mexico. ViaGen is also in talks with other breeders in Spain. |
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