Not in My Litterbox

Everybody wants to be David Magnus, at least when it comes to animal cloning. Why? Our fair co-editor's quip about how many animals who need homes are kept waiting while cosmetic kitty cloning takes $50,000 a pop.

Autumn Fiester already took aim at Magnus in a post last week. Now comes Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, in a San Francisco Chronicle attack on pet cloning, an issue almost too silly to make it into the papers in the first place. Not too silly for the Chronicle though.

More to the point, with millions of healthy and adoptable cats and dogs being killed each year for lack of suitable homes, it's a little frivolous to be cloning departed pets. The challenge is not to find new, absurdly expensive ways to create animals, but to curb the growth of pet populations and to foster an ethic in society that prompts people to adopt and shelter creatures in need of loving homes.