China's first cloned cow gave birth to a healthy calf on Wednesday in east China's Shandong Province, a local zoologist confirmed Thursday.

The calf, born at 9:06 AM, weighed 45.5 kg, said Zhang Qingyun, managing director of Kelong Animal Husbandry Industrial Co. based in Liangshan County.

An hour after birth, the calf stood up, measuring 90 cm tall, and drank up one kg of her mother's foremilk.

The mother, Wei Wa, became pregnant on March 20 through artificial insemination, and has remained healthy throughout her pregnancy, according to Zhang.

Wei Wa was born on the same farm on October 16, 2002. Her birth caught the attention of zoologists worldwide because she was China's first cow to be cloned from the frozen somatic cells of an adult.

The cells were extracted from the ears of a cow on the farm, under a program run by Kelong and Beijing's China Agricultural University.

The Shandong company has cloned 26 more cattle with the same technology over the past two years, and three of Wei Wa's "younger sisters" are between six and eight months pregnant. Company sources say they expect more calves to be born after February.

Liangshan is home to a major gene modification research center under the nation's High and New Technology Research and Development Program.

In a related story, the establishment of a cell bank in Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding may lead to the possibility of giant panda cloning.

Exchanges of live giant pandas, gene pool preservation and a picture bank of common giant panda diseases will all be completed this year.
 
Cloning could be a rescue measure for the giant panda against the threat of extinction, whilst live exchanges maintain genetic diversity amongst populations in different areas.
 
(Xinhua News Agency, Chinanews.cn December 30, 2004)