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V.E.T.A. for Cloning
(Veterinarian for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)
As the chief veterinarian at game parks in Africa and Australia, you oversee the care and
feeding of reptiles, including the Komodo "dragon," as well as large herds of mammals in
nature preserves in Kenya. The chance to manage the first group of cloned dinosaurs is a
job too exciting to pass up. You plan to tell the Judges that years of experience in animal
husbandry in wild and domesticated stock lead you to believe that the management of dinosaurs
is not an insurmountable problem. But you also need to consider ethical aspects. Everyone
acknowledges that Earth today faces declining populations of endangered species. What would
be valuable to mention to the Judges that will convince them of the ethics of resurrecting
dinos? You've already been involved in an experimental program in Tanzania where vaccinations
of lions and cheetahs were carried out in an ethically responsible way. Maybe explaining to
the Judges how the big cats benefited will help boost your case. As an animal care specialist,
you'll need to investigate if similar techniques could be applied to dinosaurs and to identify
if those would assuage specific concerns. You'll also need to explore the feasibility of
introducing certain dinosaur species into different habitats in an ethical manner. Does
research suggest that dinosaurs would adjust well to our Cenozoic world? Could a captive
breeding program of dinosaurs be handled in an ethical manner, and, if so, how? What kinds
of strategies would be required to successfully raise the young of newly cloned individuals
without their natural parents? Could the cloned dinosaurs be used in an ethically responsible
way to help solve modern global problems? You'll convince the Judges that it's a simple enough
ethical equation - bring back the dinos and help restore Earth's ecological balance!
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