Cause of cloned wolf's death still unknown

By Kim Boram
SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Yonhap) -- Scientists who were looking into the death of the
world's first cloned wolf at a local zoo said Wednesday they have not yet been
able to determine the exact cause.
Snuwolf, one of two wolves successfully cloned in 2005 by veterinary professors
led by Lee Byeong-chun at Seoul National University (SNU), was found dead in late
August in a terrarium at the Seoul Zoo.
Lee said that his lab performed an autopsy the day the female wolf's body was
found but has not been able to make any conclusions.
"Her body had badly decayed owing to hot weather. I could not get the biopsy
results and single out the bacteria that caused the death," said Lee.
"There is a high possibility of acute hemorrhagic pneumonia as we saw she was
bleeding around her nose and mouth, but we must not jump to a conclusion," Lee
added.
Snuwolf and her sister Snuwolffy were created by transplanting fertilized eggs
with implanted somatic cells to a surrogate wolf. Snuwolffy is alive and is
currently being cared for at the zoo.
The SNU veterinary team said that they will conduct further tests to compare the
remains of Snuwolf with those of ordinary wolves.
The cloning of the wolves was confirmed a success by an SNU panel despite the
team's critical mistakes in research data. The same team cloned three male wolves
in 2006.
brk@yna.co.kr
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