Dire wolve genetic tech to help create 'warhounds' – USA Today

Dire wolve genetic tech to help create ‘warhounds’  USA Today

The biotech company that brought us the dire wolves has a new project: breeding and cloning elite dogs for the U.S. military, law enforcement and first responders. New defense-tech startup Warhound, launched by Ben Lamm and Palmer Luckey, announced Thursday, Oct. 22, it had received $200 million in funding for its ambitious goal: rebuild America's domestic supply of military working dogs using cloning, genetic screening and battlefield technology. The company, valued at $1.2 billion, says the effort could reduce U.S. reliance on imported dogs while improving training success rates. According to Warhound, more than 80% of U.S. military working dogs are acquired from Europe. To accomplish that, Warhound will license Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences' biogenetics and animal-cloning technology alongside Anduril Industries' defense systems "to fundamentally change how America produces, trains and protects its military working dogs," the company said in a news release.

The company argues that supply has dwindled because of growing international competition for top working dogs and a growing rift between America and the European Union, which currently supplies most of the animals used by the U.S. military. "There's supply chain issues. A lot of the best dogs have been purchased. There's a dwindling supply (and) we compete with our adversaries," Colossal co-founder Ben Lamm told USA TODAY. Among the breeds Warhound expects to raise for the