De-Extinction
Wooly mammoths, passenger pigeons, Chinese river dolphins, all of these animals have
one thing in common. They all once were free to roam the earth but are now extinct. Either from
hunting them down, pollution or by natural causes, these animals were never thought to be
encountered again in our time until now. From our knowledge of cells and DNA, scientists are
working on bringing back some of these extinct species. They say that we would benefit from
bringing them back, but is this really what we should focus our work on? Sure it would be cool
to see a wooly mammoth roaming around but maybe it wouldn’t be the smartest thing to
introduce them back to an environment never before encountered by one of these fascinating
creatures. These are the questions people are asking as scientists currently work to bring these
animals back from our past.
Scientists have hoped to be able to bring back species that have gone extinct for some
time, ever since the films of Jurassic park brought dinosaurs back for our entertainment.
Although we can’t bring dinosaurs back due to how long ago they went extinct scientists have
the knowledge and technology to try to bring back species that have lefts us in the past few ten
thousand years. With our advances in stem cell research, researchers now have the ability to
induce adult animal cells to return to an embryo-like state. Which can then be coaxed do develop
into any type of cell such as an egg or sperm. These eggs can then be used to develop into a fully
functional embryo. The first step in bringing back a species like the wooly mammoth would be
to find well preserved mammoths. From there scientists would need to find a cell that is alive and
coax it to produce millions of cells that would be programmed to grow into embryos which
would then have to be implanted into the closest relative to a mammoth, an elephant. That would
be the ideal case for reviving the wooly mammoth but most scientists doubt that any living cell
could have survived. If this is the case then Insung Hwang, a scientist from sooam, has another
plan. He plans to capture an in8tact nucleus rather than a whole cell, even though cloning from
nothing but a nucleus will be a lot more difficult. Hwang will need to transfer the nucleus into an
elephant egg with its own nucleus removed, if the DNA inside the nucleus takes control of the
egg then it might start dividing into a mammoth embryo that would need to be transplanted into
an elephant’s womb.
If Hwang succeeds in having a wooly mammoth born, what would be the benefits?
Wooly mammoths, along with other extinct animals they hope to revive played a vital part in
their ecosystems which would benefit from their return. Siberia was home to animals like the
wooly mammoth about 12,000 years ago and back then the land there was grassy steppes rather
than mostly mossy tundra. Bringing the mammoth back they hope will bring the vegetation back
by maintaining the grassland. A problem that arises when bringing back an animal that has been
extinct is introducing it back into the wild. If you bring back an organism you would also have to
reintroduce the species of plants it fed on. And is the environment really ready for the
reintroduction of these species? We have done nothing to stop the pollution that drove the
Chinese river dolphin extinct recently so would there really be any point? The species would be
put into the wild just to be killed off again. As the director of the Institute for Social Sustainability
at Murdoch University in Australia, Glenn Albrecht says, “Without an environment to put re-created
species back into, the whole exercise is futile and a gross waste of money.” Still de-extinction
advocates suggest that we have an obligation to revive these species since we are the ones that
initially drove them extinct. Bringing them back would be a sort of redemption for humans along
with maybe providing resource for developing a new pharmaceutical drug which often come from
natural compounds found in wild plant species which also become extinct.
Even with all the obstacles to overcome in bringing an extinct species back scientists still
obsessively work in doing so. Would it really work though? As stated above it would be pointless and
a waste of money to bring back a species just to have it go extinct again. What is the point in having
brought them back just to be kept in captivity or in zoos for visitors to gawk at? Would it really be
that species de-extinct or just an engineered organism? We should be focusing our work and money
towards projects that work on protecting the thousands of species that are still on the earth and are
at risk of becoming extinct also. Like John Weins, an evolutionary biologist, puts it, “There is clearly
a terrible urgency to saving threatened species and habitats. As far as I can see, there is little urgency
for bringing back extinct ones. Why invest millions of dollars in bringing a handful of species back
from the dead, when there are millions still waiting to be discovered, described, and protected?”