There is a long list of species that have died off in the past century. Many directly or indirectly caused by humans taking over their habitats or hunting them to the point of non-viability. Then there are some lines that would have gone away even without us. Passenger pigeons, the Dodo, the Golden Toad, the list goes on.
Add to those the examples that aren’t recent, but that we have DNA samples due to being frozen in the Artic and Antartic regions. Woolly Mammoth and the like.
Add also to the list the lines that are liable to die off while we’re perfecting the technology. Elephants, rhinos, various big cats and other exotic animals that are being poached as we speak.
In a nutshell:
[ol]
[li]Tasmanian Tiger[/li][li]Woolly Mammoth[/li][li]Passenger Pigeon[/li][li]Quagga[/li][li]Saber-Tooth Tiger[/li][li]Dodo Bird[/li][li]Steller’s Sea Cow[/li][li]Auroch[/li][li]Gastric-Brooding Frog[/li][li]Carolina Parakeet[/li][/ol]
Let’s presume for the purposes of this discussion that all of these are viable candidates by whatever means the DNA can be cultivated or recreated.
Does anyone believe that any of these would ever be returned to the wild? There isn’t much we could learn about their behavior because most of that would be learned from their surrogate parents.
Sure, it would be neat to go to the zoo or on a wilderness preserve tour to see a sabertooth ‘in the wild’.
One day, maybe soon, this will be fodder for Great Debates. But for the time being, what say ye?
Out of curiosity, what do you think is the argument against? Money/resources? Some ethical thing (what, specifically?) Danger from roaming packs of sabertooths?
Assuming it wasn’t spectacularly expensive, or required the blood of babies, bunnies, and kittens, I’m not sure what the downside would be.
Based on what I have read a case can be made in the favor or bringing back the Passenger Pigeon, while I do not think it will be released into the wild, I do think that technology is available to make them become less of a flight risk and be a nice bit of poultry in our diet.
I always think that the USA lost a huge industry because many reported that the Pigeon tasted so good that that was the main reason they were almost all shot to death, and by the time it was noticed that there were no more of the huge numbers that many had observed before it was too late to save them.
Some might say that the resources would be better dedicated to preventing current extinctions rather than reversing past ones.
But that might be too limited and “zero-sum” kind of thinking.
Start small. A colony of Dodos in a zoo somewhere. Work out the techniques. Stumble over the errors inherent in the process. Nobody’s going to be too heartbroken over a clutch of Dodos with horrible birth defects. (As opposed to a cute little baby Mammoth with severe deformities.)
The idea has to be sold. The PR battle is as big a potential obstacle as the scientific difficulties.
The passenger pigeon was somewhat unique in that it needed large numbers of its fellow passenger pigeons to flock around it. It was known well before they all died off that they were in danger, but efforts to preserve them failed because the passenger pigeon needed large numbers in a nesting colony for courtship and breeding behavior to happen. It was tried, and shown not possible, to reestablish the species with a few dozen captive birds.
Particularly in the case of recent extinctions due more to loss of habitat than over hunting, what has changed to made them viable? Also, unless you create many of them, there is also a question of genetic diversity.
Yes, because it would be awesome. That’s reason enough.
As a serious answer, once it becomes possible, someone will do it. It doesn’t matter what laws are passed in the US, Europe, or elsewhere – someone will bring back many of these animals. So the better question is this: once it happens, what do we do about it? Do we try to reintroduce them to the wild, or keep them in zoos/preserves?
As iiandiiii said upthread “once it becomes possible, someone will do it.” Moreover, once it becomes possible, it should be done. Every extinct species should be brought back, and not only for intelligence gathering, although that would probably be the primary or overarching reason.
I see no significant downside. On the upside, we might learn some interesting animal behaviors that would otherwise be lost to time. Not to mention the fact that it would be really neat.
The California Condor ( Gymnogyps californianusis) considered to be officially “extinct”, in that all present and fufure members of the species are descended from birds hatched and reared in captivity, and no longer meets the criteria of a “wild bird”. Even though they live in the wild.
The status of the California Condor would be exactly the same, if every living condor had died, and they had been cloned back into existence from surviving tissue.
I didn’t expect that there would be too many voices against it in this crowd, but I didn’t expect none. Dusting off debate cap We did have moral and ethical responsibilities not to destroy them in the first place, but that obligation died with them. Even if we do bring them back, it will only be as novelties in a zoo or research lab somewhere. They will never know the freedom they once had.
Of all the arguments for bringing them back, “We hunted them to extinction because they were tasty, we should bring them back because they’re tasty.” is not one I expected. Good job. How many pigeon mcnugget meals would we have to sell to recoup the millions of dollars it would take to drop the first batch in the frier?
Exactly. How many are we going to have to crank out before the population can become self sustaining? Once the lab runs through the embryo stock it creates before moving on to the next exciting challenge, back to extinction in 4 or 5 generations.
Y’know, if people really want to eat pigeons… we got pigeons.
As Oakminster suggested, this has been asked and answered in several documentaries… Condors. We should bring back condors. Or otherwise use our cloning technologies to prevent extinction.
Allow me to be the Ian Malcolm here. Regardless of whether we caused a species extinction or not, the Earth has moved on and adjusted to their absence. We have no idea what the reintroduction of a species would do to current ecosystems. I think you’d be playing with fire. Life moves on, it finds a way and something else takes over that ecological niche.
