The following article is a guest post by David Jachowski. Dr. Jachowski is an instructor at Virginia Tech and conducts research in the United States, Africa and southeast Asia on the conservation and restoration of wildlife. You can find more information about his research on his website.
So maybe genetically recreating the Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) is a bad
idea. Long extinct, the only
chunks of DNA we are able to piece together to bring it back would have to be
mixed into an Asian elephant. And over time, through a long process of trial
and error, we could likely create a laboratory hybrid with the right
combination of size, long hair, and cold tolerance genes expressed to at least
visually recreate a Woolly Mammoth.
A geneticist's rendition of what a Woolly Mammoth should be like that
in the end is a Frankenstein animal, no more realistic than the cartoons that artists
render for our imaginations. And
maybe the other figurehead of de-extinction, the Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), is the wrong
way to go. We have fresh specimens
from the early 1900's, and technology from the poultry industry, but would need
thousands if not millions of expensively engineered individuals to ever recover
the enormous flocks that once flew over the eastern seaboard.
Respected conservation biologists call de-extinction
misguided, or at best a hobbyist branch of conservation biology. They loudly cry that it will take money
from existing conservation efforts, create invasive species and worst of all
lead to the political and public disregard for extinction. This last concern of disregarding
extinction deserves more attention.
As a field that is based on conserving species from extinction,
de-extinction potentially pulls the foundation out from under the entire
conservation biology movement in one fell swoop. If extinction is no longer forever, lobbyist and
pro-development politicians should be licking their chops.

If this is the first you have heard of de-extinction, know that this is happening. Even
if you have deep reservations about genetically recreating species, there are
no longer questions regarding whether we can do it. The train is leaving the
station and we as conservationists need to be in front of it or on it, not be
left behind. As you read this, Australian
scientists are watching the cells divide in a future, genetically re-engineered
Gastric-brooding Frog
(Rheobatrachus silus and/or vitellinus), bringing the extinct species back to life.
Thylacines (aka Tasmanian Tiger, Thylacinus cynocephalus) and
mammoths will likely follow a few years later.
It is pointless to try to block this from happening, but what if we were
to direct de-extinction so that it strategically focuses on the species we most
carelessly let go. We could direct
the de-extinction train towards charismatic and ecologically important species
we extirpated through simple overharvest like the giant oceanic island tortoises
or Caribbean Monk Seals
(Monachus tropicalus). By bringing them back we would
almost undoubtedly gain both species and ecosystem function. It may not be the same ecosystem or
even the exact same species, but it is a step forward in conserving
biodiversity and a new, more popular, ecosystem.
Yes I said popular, because in the end, with over seven
billion people and counting, conservationists needs to accept that preserving species
is a popularity contest. The Polar
Bear (Ursus maritimus) only wins
against gas development if people like them and advocate for them. For de-extinction, we could use the same
branding that makes restoration ecology so attractive to the public (by selling
hope that things can be restored)
for conserving existing protected areas as well as neglected, novel
ecosystems. Look at the success of
large herbivore and carnivore restoration in South Africa,
or tourism demand to see wolves in Yellowstone. There are certainly concerns to
proceeding with de-extinction, but perhaps by embracing and defining the path
of de-extinction, conservation biologists will not lose the foundation of their
discipline, but gain another leg on their stool of support.
Want to Learn More? Check Out These Scientific Articles:
Hansen, D., Donlan, C., Griffiths, C., & Campbell, K. (2010). Ecological history and latent conservation potential: large and giant tortoises as a model for taxon substitutions Ecography DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0587.2010.06305.x
Josh Donlan C, Berger J, Bock CE, Bock JH, Burney DA, Estes JA, Foreman D, Martin PS, Roemer GW, Smith FA, Soulé ME, & Greene HW (2006). Pleistocene rewilding: an optimistic agenda for twenty-first century conservation. The American Naturalist, 168 (5), 660-81 PMID: 17080364
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