The natural world is marked by an ever-increasing loss of varied
habitats, a growing number of species extinctions, and a full range of
new kinds of dilemmas posed by global warming. At the same time, humans
are also working to actively shape this natural world through
contemporary bioscience and biotechnology. In Cloning Wild Life, Carrie
Friese posits that cloned endangered animals in zoos sit at the apex of
these two trends, as humans seek a scientific solution to environmental
crisis. Often fraught with controversy, cloning technologies, Friese
argues, significantly affect our conceptualizations of and engagements
with wildlife and nature.
By studying animals at different locations, Friese explores the human
practices surrounding the cloning of endangered animals. She visits
zoos--the San Diego Zoological Park, the Audubon Center in New Orleans,
and the Zoological Society of London--to see cloning and related
practices in action, as well as attending academic and medical
conferences and interviewing scientists, conservationists, and
zookeepers involved in cloning. Ultimately, she concludes that the act
of recalibrating nature through science is what most disturbs us about
cloning animals in captivity, revealing that debates over cloning
become, in the end, a site of political struggle between different human
groups. Moreover, Friese explores the implications of the social role
that animals at the zoo play in the first place--how they are viewed,
consumed, and used by humans for our own needs. A unique study uniting
sociology and the study of science and technology, Cloning Wild Life
demonstrates just how much bioscience reproduces and changes our ideas
about the meaning of life itself.
