Should We De-Extinct The Woolly Mammoth? No, Save The Elephants

Should we bring back extinct animals? Wrong question. Why are we bringing back extinct animals when we have animals, plants, and fungi that are going extinct now, daily? By 2050, up to half of all species now alive could be extinct. Should we sacrifice the lives that can still be saved for poorly conceived experiments? As much fun as it may be for well-funded geneticists, from the perspective of conservation this is inefficient and frustrating. Bringing back a 12 foot tall flightless bird does sound hilarious, but is that the best use of resources? 12% of all bird species are endangered. If fans of Game of Thrones want to make their special wolves a reality, then they have the right to fantasize or show intellectual curiosity about the possibility. I would simply like to put in a word for the animals that exist now, that are important, and that are being threatened. Research has shown that the pursuit of de-extinction can have a net negative effect on biodiversity, the great cause the proponents claim to champion.

Paris Hilton and the CIA are among the investors in Colossal Biosciences, a company that’s valued at $10 billion, and undertaking several de-extinction projects. They “brought back” the dire wolf last year, and they’ve bred a woolly mouse in anticipation of a woolly mammoth. The progress that humanity has made with genetics is impressive, but is this application useful? Beyond curiosity, creating cute new pets, or as a preface for transhumanism, what’s the specific utility to humanity in bringing back an animal that by definition, isn’t adapted for the world and will spend its life in a zoo; we’ll be breeding novelties to create more caged, emotionally stunted animals for people to leer at for an afternoon.

Let us note that no extinct animals are actually being brought back. Some of their genetic traits are being edited into their nearest living relatives, or animals that look like them thanks to convergent evolution, and those proxies are what we’re talking about. Proponents are redefining terms as is convenient for them, as Colossal does on their website with “de-extinction.” The Dire Wolves born last year are not Dire Wolves. They’re Grey Wolves turned white with stronger jaws and about another dozen gene edits. They sure aren’t the Dire Wolves that went extinct about 12,000 years ago, and diverged from living Canids about 5.7 million years ago. Dire wolves were genetically closer to a Dhole or Dingo anyway. This is a farce.

The “Woolly Mammoth” will be a hairy Asian Elephant; the “Moa” will be an edited Emu.

Get Ready For Moa Flu

Zoonotic diseases are those that pass between humans and animals. Rabies, Bird Flu, Swine Flu are examples. These disease occur more often when different animals are kept in contact with each or people, which allows the diseases to evolve in different environments. Disease inducing microorganisms can jump between hosts, mutating and adapting and sometimes evolving into something devastating. The risk for ancient animals is greater as they don’t have immune systems suited for modern diseases. How will the hybrids being created react, when they have half archaic and half modern DNA? Will this make them more resilient, or more vulnerable? This is a big unknown and we shouldn’t be optimistic. From this resurrection would be a disease for which no modern Sapien is adapted. Remember the Native Americans and smallpox. Do we want to reintroduce viruses that can reduce our population by an order of magnitude? The Bird Flu and Covid were bad enough, shall we find out what the Moa or Dodo Flus will be like?

False Cure, Red Herring Of A Solution

What’s cooler than breeding hybrids of extinct animals? Keeping them alive in the first place. At this pace, half of living species will be gone forever by 2050. When people think that we can bring back extinct animals, which we now understand isn’t in fact what’s happening, they’ll think that protecting the species we have is less of a priority. After all, if an organism is that important then we’ll just birth another one. It falsely allays concerns about biodiversity, the variety of life that is essential to strong ecosystems, where every organism with its niche performs its vital task. Removing any link on a food web has impacts on others; we can’t view the death of one species as being important only for that species. What led to the death of the Dire Wolf in the first place? The death of all the herbivores it ate. To the point, why aren’t we bringing back these forgotten herbivores? Because they weren’t featured on Game of Thrones so no one cares.

If we use the de-extinction programs to garner interest in conservation, then I support them. Otherwise it’s hard not to view this as an unnecessary indulgence. Given the constant threats against Asian Elephants in the Cardamom Mountains that Wildlife Alliance protects, we can’t get excited about making a hairy one while ignoring the bald ones that still exist, for now, constantly threatened by large development projects like hydropower dams.

Let these projects bring attention and funding to current at-risk species, to excite the imagination and educate people about the importance of biodiversity and protecting nature. Otherwise, don’t do it.