I guess it depends on the animal. Some animals have a great deal of learned behavior. Elephants are a good example.
On the other hand, some animals rely largely on instinct. Most birds seem to fall into this latter category. I don’t think you’d have to train a moa to be a moa. We have, for years, successfully bred California condors in captivity, without parental training. They seem to get by just fine upon release.
Straight from the mouth of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service:
From the 1995 Report of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association Species Survival Plan® for the California condor:
From Could Dinosaurs Live in a Zoo? by Robert Bakker:
Not sure I buy the idea of parental training in birds, Wood Thrush. I grew up in the country, and saw a lot of wild birds, but in most species didn’t see a lot of parental attention once the birds left the nest. Moreover, we occasionally raised ducklings. They took to swimming, well, like a duck to water, and didn’t seem to require any training on how to feed themselves once in the pond.
The high mortality among captive-bred condors doesn’t prove much. Condors had a high (25%) annual mortality rate before humans ever got involved with breeding them. Is it any higher now? The article didn’t say.
Nor did the article offer any basis for the conclusion that the absence of parental training was a factor. It sounds like speculation. I have never seen condors in the wild, but I see plenty of vultures. I don’t see anything that looks like a vulture scout troop being shown the ropes by vulture scoutmasters on the ins and outs of eating carrion. It all seems to come naturally.
Many animals have no contact at all with their young after they are born. (Most reptiles, e.g.) Instinct takes over. It is still my view that birds (most anyway) also fit into this category.
In theory, perhaps. In practice, well, since the ostrich has the largest egg on earth at the moment, that would be difficult.
I think cloning extinct animals would be interesting precisely because of some of the arguments brought up here. It could tell us how much of an animal’s behavior is learned vs. instinctive. Or how close modern pathogens are to those that were around yonks and yonks of years ago, and how quickly they could adapt.
Of course, this assumes a rather callous attitude of, “let’s spend a ton of money and time to recreate a wonder of nature that hasn’t seen the light of day for millions of years and then see how easy it is to kill,” but, hey, scientists are supposed to be bastards, right?
spoke-, I don’t have the time or permission to copy them here, but pick up a copy of the book The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds by John K. Terres, published by Wings Books, and read the following articles:
[ul]
[li]Altricial p. 15[/li][li]Eggs and Egg-laying pp. 253 – 257[/li][li]Embryo and Its Development pp. 258 – 260[/li][li]Young and Their Care pp.1049 – 1053[/li][/ul]
I didn’t say lack of parental guidance was the main factor for the lack of sucess in re-introducing California condors. I just wanted to point out that multiple sources confirm that the lack of parental or flock guidance causes California condors to become more prone to death. The sites mention that if there were role models for the condors, they would have somehow (remember, the point isn’t how it happens, it’s if it happens or not) gained that knowlege from the other condors. If you have respectable sources (i.e., not your own casual observations in the countryside) that debunk this hypothesis, by all means please reference them. I would like to read them.
Anyway, I just wanted to let all of you know that California condors don’t get along “just fine after release,” at least not according to most people’s definition of “just fine.”
As for the duck thing: Anas platyrhynchos cannot solely represent the behaviors of the class Aves just as Erinaceus europaes cannot solely represent the behaviors of the class Mammalia and the weather today cannot solely represent global climate patterns. Don’t overuse inductive reasoning!
Wood Thrush, I applaud and respect your citations re: the pathogen thing, and have no sources available to challenge Robert Bakker’s assertions. I suspect an effective rebuttal could be found in the book Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine, but I don’t have a copy handy.
However, what you and Bakker argue is counter to everything I understand about natural selection, and I wish you or someone else (David B.?) would explain more fully why archaic species “reincarnated” by cloning would be in danger from modern microbes.
Species are interdependent within an ecosphere, and just as, after the K-T extinction event, carnosaurs died because the herbivores died because the plants died, so too should the “predator” viruses and bacteria of the time have died.
Diseases tend to be very specific in what they strike. The rhinovirus we succumb to once or twice a year is harmless to our dogs and cats, and chimps don’t get AIDS from HIV even though they share 98% of our genes. I don’t see how there could be any bugs out there today that would have a taste for tyrannosaur or ankylosaur booty.
OK, Wood Thrush, I promise to cut back on the inductive reasoning if you promise to stop anthropomorphizing animals. 
Not every animal needs a “mommy” and a “daddy” to teach them how to survive. Some can survive on instinct. Will you at least grant me this?
(We may have to agree to disagree over which animals rely on instinct and which require teaching.)
spoke- wrote:
Absolutely, spoke-! Most animals don’t. But, then again, half of all animal species are beetles. In addition, not all animals have a “mmomy” and “daddy.” So the scales are a little tipped.
In any case, what “most” animals do is irrelavent. When dealing with things like learning patterns, it is best to look at it on the specific level. And in the species Gymnogyps californianus, the evidence shows that juveniles require the presence of adults to properly develop behaviors involved with adapting fully to their environment. That doesn’t mean adults are actively teaching and correcting them.
Five—
I don’t understand the nuances of parasite and host evolution, but what Mr. Bakker says makes a lot of sense. Besides: why couldn’t a pathogen invade an animal that has an extremely ineffective immune system against it?
There is, however, a chance that Mr. Bakker and I are wrong on this one.
I dunno. I’m still waiting for the evidence. All I’ve seen is conclusory statements to that effect, without supporting data.
At any rate, who’s to say whether a moa is more like a condor or more like a duck in the amount of “training” it needs. (Without conceding that a condor need such training, of course… ) We won’t know for sure unless we clone one of the critters, will we?
Putting aside questions of feasibility for a moment, I’m still trying to figure out whether you have some moral objection to cloning extinct animals. To me, it seems like a way for humans to try to undo some of the environmental damage we have caused. There is habitat for at least some extinct mammals. Some were not driven to extinction by loss of habitat, but rather by human hunting practices. We can alter our hunting practices to prevent that from happening again. (Witness the comeback of the wild turkey in recent years.)
spoke- said:
And all I’ve seen is one skeptic who never cited anything. You have introduced absolutely no evidence to support your extremely vague claim of “instinct.” How can I support my claim without seeing the alternative?
Did you read my cited articles from the Encyclopedia of North American Birds? The articles give important points on young birds’ development. Here is one that is short enough for me to copy:
Complete text of “Fledgling” (pp. 356-357), an article in The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds by John K. Terres, published by Wings Books:
(By the way, the fact that most birds have a fledgling period proves your claim that most birds have nothing to do with the young after the young leave the nest erroneous.)
Besides, I would think the U.S. government and the very organization which is trying to raise condors, the A.Z.A., would be authorities on this matter. The scientists there work with the vultures. They know first-hand.
And it’s not “training”! They just require the presence of adult condors to behave properly. And i’m not saying that everything they do is learned. Even some of human behavior in instinctive.
Also, California condors take 5-7 years to reach breeding age (“Condor, California” (p. 957) under “Vulture—American Vulture Family,” Encyclopedia of N.A. Birds, you know the rest by now). I think that is a sufficient period of time to pick up on what to do and what not to do.
And mallards are not completely independent after leaving the nest as you asserted. The mother leads the chicks to their food (“Mallard” (pp. 194–195) under “Duck Family” in The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds by John K. Terres). Because mallard chicks are precocial, they need to be able to walk, swim, and eat shortly after hatching.
I’ll be away for the next few days, so that leaves you time to cite authoritative sources and, if you didn’t already, read the articles.
Dinosaurs would go the way, of well…dinosaurs due to modern microbes for the same reason that the native populations of the Americas were decimated after the Europeans showed up. The native population’s immune systems were simply unable to handle the strange new diseases of small pox and measles, to which the European population had acquired immunity. The natives in turn gave the Europeans syphilis. A disease which was completely foreign to them.
The immune system is extremely complex and develops over time. Thus the reason that bacteria and viruses mutate so quickly. Call it evolution on a super-scale.
So the newly developed dino would have no natural immunity to even the most familiar pathogen. In fact, what we call “commensials” (bacteria that make up the natural flora of you skin and gut) could potentially kill them.
Sorry, but I don’t buy this. The analogy is flawed. There’s a HUGE difference between two populations of the same species, as you describe, and the reintroduction of entirely new species. The diseases you mentioned were already quite happy living in humans before the Europeans met the Americans. There was no need for them to adapt.
Yes, the dinos would have no resistance to modern pathogens. But, yes, the modern pathogens would also not be adapted to dino systems. Which would win? I dunno. That’s why I think it’d be interesting to try this and find out. Personally, I’d suspect it wouldn’t be too long before some virus figured out how to survive in a dino. Of course, that’s assuming the dinos don’t die of food poisoning or pollution or even lack of motherly love first.
Chlamydia psittaci (chlamydiosis, formerly known as psittacosis, colloquially known as “parrot fever”) seems to have no problem infecting both parrots and humans, and the apperantly not yet classified encephalitis strain known as “West Nile-like encephalitis” manages to accomplish the same feat. Birds and mammals are separated by tens of millions of years of evolution. Thus, they have large genetic and morphological differences. Hmm…
There is also another strain of enchephalitis, EEV (east encephalitis virus, from the eastern U.S., as apposed to the west encephalitis virus, from the western U.S.), which infects birds, humans, some rodents, horses, and reptiles, including garter snakes. How many millions of years have those groups been genetically seperated for? Are dinosaurs (a group that does, sfter all, include all birds), seperated by a much larger amount of years?
And most local birds have developed a resistance to EEV. West Nile-like encephalitis, however, has only been around in the Northeast region of the U.S. for about two years. Local birds have not yet built up a resistance to it, and are killed in great numbers in comparison to EEV. Are our local birds more distantly related to the birds of the West Nile (Who have a resistance in their home area to the closely related — or identical, depending on how they classify West Nile-like encephalitis — West Nile encephalitis) than the birds of the West Nile are to the humans indigenous to the West Nile area (who also have built up a resistance)?
Hey Wood Thrush, you never answered my question as to whether you have some moral objection to cloning extinct animals? Well? Do you?
I never said mallard mothers don’t interact with their young. What I did say is that ducklings can get along without their mothers. It is not necessary to teach them to be ducks. Their instincts guide them.
But let’s assume for the moment that you are correct, and that birds cannot survive on instinct alone. (Is that what you’re asserting?)
Let’s imagine that it is humans who have gone extinct, and some super-intelligent wasp is cloning us back into existence. They clone a group of children. There is high mortality, as the wasps aren’t 100% sure how to care for the children, and the chilren are missing out on instruction from their elders. But let’s imagine that the wasps manage to get some of the humans, a breeding group, to adulthood. The wasps provide the humans, over a few generations, with a protected environment. Do you not think, even starting from scratch like that, that humans would eventually develop societies and learn to live on their own? If humans (which rely on instinct so little) could do it, wouldn’t it be even easier for birds (which rely on instinct a great deal)?
I say let’s try it and see (if it turns out to be feasible). What have we got to lose? What’s your beef with that? (Or are you just being contrarian?)
I am noy saying they need to be taught.
And I am not saying all birds need parental presence.
What I am saying is that the California condor and the mallard need the presence of adults to mature correctly.
Must I point out again that the reason ducks need to be able to move about and eat on their own after hatching is beacause they are precocial? Just because young are precocial doesn’t mean the young can go without parental presence after they hatch.
And as for your wasp scenario, just the fact that the humans develop their own societies proves that that aspect of the experiment was a failure. You don’t want to observe how humans (or moas, for that matter) can adapt. You want to see how they naturally behaved.
And If you want to debate about moral objections, start a thread in Great Debates. Let’s just say I have no moral objections.
My email:
The reply:
(He had quotation marks aound the books’ titles. I changed it to italicization for the sake of clarity.)
I’m going to see if those books are in my local library.
**
What environment? These creature will never be in the wild again, these will be animals in captivity. As to “fully adapting”, it would never happen as their environmental niches are long taken over.
If you really had to put them in the wild the best bet is to try to have other related animals raise them, it happens all the time. I’m not saying that highly-social animals don’t need group socialization, but the real hurdle will be giving birth to them not making sure they act natural or which type of zoo-grade slop to feed them.
I find the whole concept of cloning fascinating. But there are several questions I don’t quite have a grasp on:
2.What are the more general effects on the existing ecosysytem? I mean, extinct animals died off for a reason. We have plenty examples of what non-native flora and fauna can do in the right situation : from zebra mussels in the Great Lakes, to kudzu in the American South,etc.,etc… Why would we want to reintroduce mammoths, for instance? Is this just a case of intellectual arrogance?
HorseloverFat wrote:
That is quite a hurdle, seeing that all condors are laid and hatched but never given birth to. 
Seriously, though, I’m interested in the raising of young by related species. Seeing as a huge cowbird chick can fool a song sparrow half its size into caring for it as its own, that could work If the young are fed enough of the right kind of food. I believe this has worked with whooping crane chicks and adult sandhill cranes, but I could be mistaken. Which raptors has this method worked on?
Barney111 wrote:
[speculation]
I’m sure introducing a mammoth would not be a cause huge problems. If any species gets out of control, the complex “checks and balances” in nature come into effect. It may take a lot more than a human lifetime, but mammoths will either all die out or reach equilibrium with their environment.
[/speculation]
In any case, I’m sure there will be always be a space in our zoos for mammoths.
Nothing like walking into the cross-fire, especially when you don’t know too much about the subject…
It seems to me that the question of whether dinosaurs would be easily infected because they don’t have defenses against modern diseases, or would be immune because there are no modern diseases which would target them, hinges on why diseases are specific in what they target. It’s not my field at all, but I see two possibilities: viruses and bacteria are specific because they are tuned to use the machinery of the host, or they are specific because they must be tuned to evade the defenses of the host. This sounds like something which should be known by people in the field. Anyone?
If the first case holds, dinosaurs would be immune to living diseases. If the latter, and if their natural defenses to diseases are “obsolete,” they may die quickly.
On the subject of how important socialization and learning from the previous generation is in the behaviour of animals: How stable is this known to be? Even looking at social animals like elephants, how do we know whether their behavior 3000 or 30,000 years ago was similar? If it may have been different, and if you were to start an elephant herd (is that the right word?) from scratch, and their behavior (after several generations) was different from elephants in the wild, how can someone say that this is somehow “wrong”?