Chris Atkinson
De-extinction
11/27/13
In July of 2003, scientists tried to bring back an extinct species of goat called the
bucardo. This species of goat was officially extinct around 1999. They found body of the last
known bucardo and took nuclei samples from its cells. In order to bring back the once extinct
animal, they took regular goat eggs, removed their own DNA, and replaced them with the
bucardo nuclei. Then they put the eggs back into surrogate goats and let them come to term.
While most of them miscarried, one of them survived a birth, but only for a matter of minutes.
The baby bucardo had complications with its lungs and ended up suffocating.
There is talk of multiple other species that scientists are trying to bring back from
extinction, such as the wooly mammoth, the passenger pigeon, and gastric brooding frogs. The
frogs have been brought back, but have also succumbed to extinction. When put back in the
wild, scientists came back and found that they were once again extinct. Passenger pigeons used
to fly in such multitude that they blocked out the sun, but they were eventually hunted to
extinction. The wooly mammoth that once roamed the Siberian tundra has been extinct for
thousands of years. Scientists say that Siberia used to be more fertile due to the grazing of
these massive beasts and the fertilization their manure produced.
In the case of bringing the wooly mammoth back, it would supposedly make the frozen
tundra of Siberia a more fertile and prosperous land. The problem is trying to bring them back
from extinction. First of all, it is extremely hard to find a living cell that has been frozen in the
tundra. If not, they could find an intact nucleus that they could then replace in an elephant egg,
which apparently no one has actually harvested an elephant egg before, but there is no
guarantee that it will take control of the egg. If it does they will still have to transplant the
embryo into a surrogate elephant. Even after all is said and done, there is no guarantee that the
mammoth will not miscarry or survive out of the womb.
Some researchers say that there are more benefits of de-extinction such as medicinal
benefits. There have been plenty of medicines created from plants, and some of the extinct
plants could be beneficial to our health. With the mammoths, there are obviously benefits to
the environment. Other grazing animals have been introduced to Siberia, however, in an
attempt that seems to slowly be working. I think that if these animals are helping to turn
around the frozen environment of Siberia, then what is the point in spending millions of dollars
to bring back an extinct species to do the same thing? John Wiens of Stony Brook University
says, “There is clearly a terrible urgency to saving threatened species and habitats…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?” I agree with him. The world is an ever
evolving entity and these extinct plants and animals are extinct for a reason: survival of the
fittest. I’m not saying that I agree with the acts of hunters and poachers that cause a lot of
these species to completely die off, but I think the people that believe in de-extinction aren’t
looking at the big picture. Eventually humans will die off and another species will dominate the
Earth.
George Church does bring up a good point, however. He states, “Maybe some people
thought polio vaccines were a distraction from iron lungs…It’s hard in advance to say what’s
distraction and what’s salvation.” Bringing back some of these species can be beneficial. I’m not
opposed to that idea, but in the same way, how do we know that there aren’t species we
haven’t discovered yet that are alive today that can help us equally? These are species that are
adapted to their environment and will continue to progress in their surroundings. In the case of
the gastric brooding frogs, they obviously couldn’t survive in their habitat. It is a different world
than when they were alive. Other species take over, climates change, and a species brought
back from extinction has no family to reference living in a completely new habitat. Sure, they
might have that survival instinct, but it seems to me that nature has not and will not be kind to
them. Hank Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford University says, “What intrigues me is just that it’s
really cool. A saber-toothed cat? It would be neat to see one of those.” I agree, that would be
really cool, but is that a valid point? If they find a better reason to bring back a vicious predator,
I might be more inclined to agree with its de-extinction.