How Dolly theft bid was foiled
DOLLY the sheep was once the focus of a failed kidnap plot by green activists, it has emerged.
One of the raiders has revealed that when the group broke into the Roslin Institute in Midlothian to steal Dolly – the world’s first clone of an adult mammal – they could not single her out from the other sheep.
The attempt to take Dolly hostage in 1998 is revealed in a new book by Mark Lynas, who once led the UK campaign against “frankenfoods” – as GM crops and livestock were dubbed by critics.
In Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong on GMOS, Lynas, 44, reveals how he and three co-conspirators gained access to the institute in an effort to take Dolly hostage to highlight their opposition to the emerging technology of animal cloning.
Dolly, the world’s most famous sheep, caused a sensation when she was born in 1996 after 276 failed cloning attempts.
Mr Lynas wrote: “We had decided to steal science’s first cloned farm animal, the world-famous Dolly the sheep. Three activists and I duly took ourselves up to Scotland one autumn day in mid-1998 to carry out the plan.
“During daylight I posed as an academic researcher and was granted access to the Roslin Institute library. Once past the front desk I had free run of the corridors and roamed about trying to find which one of the several exterior sheds contained Dolly.
“By the evening we decided we knew the right livestock shed. Long after the sun had gone down, the four of us crept down a country track about a mile from the back of the Roslin Institute.”
Mr Lynas told how after crouching in the cold for hours, their meticulous planning was undone when they eventually got to the shed.
He went on: “The sheds were full of sheep. Disaster! As any half-competent shepherd can attest, all sheep look more or less the same. Cloned sheep, pretty much by definition, look even more the same.
“After all our elaborate precautions – we never discussed the plan on the phone, for example, in case of police bugs – the Roslin scientists had outfoxed us by hiding Dolly in plain sight. Frustrated and shivering, we crept back to Edinburgh grumpy and empty-handed.”
Dolly was cloned by Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell from a cell taken from a sheep’s mammary gland, which inspired the Roslin team to name her after the country and western singer Dolly Parton,
The embryo was then transferred to another “surrogate mother” sheep and Dolly was born a “normal, vigorous lamb”.
The fact she was cloned from an adult cell suggested it might one day be possible to clone adult animals and humans.
Dolly died aged six and her preserved body was put on display at the National Museum of Scotland, in Edinburgh.
Mr Lynas’s book follows a 2013 decision that his campaign against genetically modified organisms (GMOS) had been wrong. At the time, he said: “I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops.”
As any shepherd can attest, all sheep look more or less the same