Trending in Korea, Dead Dog Cloning Business!

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – For most people, pets are not just “animals”, but also friends, guardians, and family. Therefore, it is not surprising that the death of a pet is a very deep sorrow for some people.

When a pet—especially a dog or cat—passes away, quite a few people hope that their “fur child” will come back to life to accompany them. At first glance, this hope seems impossible to come true. But apparently, it is not impossible in South Korea.

In early 2024, a video showed a pet owner hugging his dog, Tico, after being separated for several months. The video touched the hearts of YouTube netizens. However, this was no ordinary meeting.

According to reports The Korea HeraldTico died in November 2022. Apparently, the puppy that appeared in the video was cloned to replace him.

For some people, this may come as a surprise. However, in fact, animal cloning is legal in South Korea even though the country does not have a regulatory framework to monitor and limit abuses that may arise in the process.

So, how is animal cloning done in South Korea?

Photo: Illustration (REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji)

In order to clone pets, cloning laboratories use the somatic cell nuclear transfer method. Live cells were obtained from tissue samples of deceased animals within 24 hours of death, unfertilized eggs, and DNA.

After injecting nuclei from real dog tissue samples into eggs without DNA, the oocytes grew and differentiated in the laboratory into pluripotent cells. Then, it is injected into a “surrogate mother dog,” which carries the egg to the end of the pregnancy.

According to reports The Korea Heraldanimal rights experts expressed concerns about the bioethical implications.

“Many other dogs have to be sacrificed to satisfy the needs of one pet owner,” said animal rights activist at Korea Animal Rights Advocates, Shin Joo-woon, quoted Tuesday (16/1/2024).

According to Shin, the “donor dog” must go through several procedures in the laboratory to retrieve fertilized eggs and the surrogate mother dog must be edited with fertilized eggs several times until they are successfully implanted into the uterus.

“It is difficult to say that pet cloning can be considered ethical under the current circumstances, as it opens up opportunities for potential exploitation and abuse,” Shin said.

The lack of transparency in pet cloning laboratories, both in terms of the cloning process and the number of laboratories performing cloning procedures, also adds to the controversy.

“Legislation is needed that regulates pet cloning and adds transparency to the cloning process to carry out this procedure safely,” said Shin.

Legal Dog Cloning, Laws Unclear

Photo: Pet illustration (REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji)

Currently, the Animal Protection Law does not include a clause prohibiting or authorizing animal cloning.

Although there are laws restricting testing on animals, cloning for personal or commercial reasons falls outside the scope of regulation placing cloning laboratories in a legal blind spot.

According to animal rights advocates, the current state of the law is also considered to make it difficult to identify which laboratories are cloning animals.

“While a law specifically mentioning the word 'cloning' should be added to the Animal Protection Law, a separate law protecting animals tested for commercial reasons is also needed,” said a lawyer who advocates for animal rights, Han Joo-hyun.

Currently, the Laboratory Animals Act simply defines animal testing as “tests conducted on laboratory animals for scientific purposes, such as education, testing, research, and the production of biological medicines.”

In 2005, Professor Hwang Woo-Suk from Seoul National University managed to clone an Afghan Hound dog named Snuppy. Thanks to that, Hwang and his team received a world record thanks to creating dogs that were first dikloning in the world.

Although Hwang's career as a professor ended after being accused of embezzlement and violating bioethics laws, his work in cloning helped pave the way for commercial activities, from cloning service dogs to cloning livestock, such as dairy cows.

The cloning method was then introduced as a way to overcome “lost pet syndrome”. This is in line with the emergence of various laboratories offering cloning services for dogs, cats and horses throughout the world.

In 2017, local media reported that the former chairman of Samsung Group, Lee Kun-hee, had cloned his pomeranian dog, Benji, twice, namely as twin puppies in 2010 and as one puppy in 2017.

Then, in 2018, American singer and actress Barbra Streisand sparked controversy when she revealed that she had cloned her dog, Samantha, into two new puppies.

According to the CEO of a startup offering dog cloning services in Korea (KrioAsia), Han Kyeong-tae, the company averages five to six dog cloning services every month—up to ten at most—which each last between six to nine months.

If you want to clone a dog, someone has to spend between 80 million and 100 million won or around Rp. 938.39 million to Rp. 1.17 billion (assuming an exchange rate of Rp. 11.73/won). Even though the costs are expensive, cloning services are increasingly sought after by pet owners.

Lawyer Han Joo-hyun urged the government to set up an animal ethics committee to oversee cloning procedures in each laboratory to monitor “how the dogs are treated and how the laboratories comply with laws governing animal testing”.

When asked about the absence of a law on pet cloning, an official from the Animal Welfare Policy Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said that the ministry was trying to determine whether animal cloning falls within the scope of animal testing.

“Currently the ministry is conducting active discussions and reviewing the Animal Protection Law, in line with the recent controversy regarding pet cloning,” the official told The Korea Herald.

“We are researching how the law on animal welfare can be shaped in terms of animal cloning and will make revisions in the future if deemed necessary,” he added.

According to 2023 data from the KB Management Institute, more than 5.52 million households have pets with 3.94 million of them having dogs.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(hsy/hsy)