De-Extinction There has been a lot of talk lately about resurrecting extinct animals. We all know about the Jurassic Park movies. While we may not have brought anything to life, wait a second that may be what most people think, but it isn’t true we did bring an extinct animal back. An Ibex is a sort of wild goat. In 2000 the last of the Pyrenean Ibex died and was declared extinct. Since this was a recent extinction the scientists had a chance to preserve skin samples. They extracted DNA from the samples and used the DNA to replace the DNA in the eggs of domestic goats and were able to clone a female Pyrenean Ibex. This was the first extinct animal to ever be brought back. The animal didn’t last long, because when it was born it had physical defects in its lungs. This has happened before with clones. While we may not have been entirely successful with the cloning process, we are learning which means we may very well perfect this procedure in the future. Every kid on the planet would love nothing more than seeing us clone a dinosaur. I think the popularity of the Jurassic movies has proved this. It seems if you put a dinosaur in a movie it makes it more interesting to many people. There are some people who feel we would be wrong to do this. They feel these animals went extinct for a purpose. It is true mother nature does many things which seem to be planned. This ability has puzzled scientists for many hundreds of years. There are those who feel the animals which went extinct thousands and millions of years ago went extinct because they were a threat to humans. While some may have threatened us because they were huge and ferocious, others may have been carriers of diseases we might not have been able to fight. There is a new term being introduced into society and it is de-extinction. It means just what it sounds like, it is a process to bring back extinct species. There have been plenty of what scientists like to call sub-species of humans who are now gone from the planet. I wonder if the temptation to de-extinct them will be too much for scientists to resist? It seems to me there will be scientists somewhere on the planet who are dying to try this. First let me say it might be impossible to do, because finding usable DNA from creatures of this type might not be possible since it will have dried up. I think they might have to be able to find one of these creatures frozen in ice to have a chance at getting viable DNA. Technology keeps moving along and will scientists find another method of resurrecting extinct animals in the future? Today the answer from most scientists might be no, but they have been wrong before. If the wrinkles of cloning can be ironed out, how far are these people willing to go? If a scientist is offered a huge amount of cash might they not be willing to bring back a dead relative? I find it hard to think this would not happen, because there are so many unscrupulous people in the world in all professions. Liquid blood samples were found from a baby horse recently which were 42,000 years old. It is the oldest blood ever found. How can DNA material be found when an animal went extinct millions of years ago? Surely nothing much in the way of anything except fossilized bone would be left? This is true, but there is another way to find genetic material for ancient fossils and it is in the bellies of preserved ticks and mosquitoes, many of which have been preserved in amber. Until this happens scientists are looking at several species which they think they might have a chance of de-extincting and they are the woolly mammoth, dodo bird, and passenger pigeon. It was said in 1866 a flock of passenger pigeons was so big it took fourteen hours to pass over Ontario, Canada. The flock contained 3.5 billion birds and forty-eight years later the passenger pigeon was extinct because of the run on pigeon meat. Woolly mammoths seem to be the animals of preference to bring back at the moment. It seems logical since frozen ones are being found. The idea would be to use the genetic material from the woolly mammoth and put it into the eggs of the Asian elephant. I am not so sure this is a true copy of a woolly mammoth since it is being born by a different elephant and it would seem to me it has to get some attributes from its mother. Perhaps this is the reason some clones seem to fail. I am not so sure how I feel about bringing back ancient animals. The modern ones which went extinct due to human intervention are one thing, but those which nature deemed were unnecessary are a completely different story. Since we do not understand nature completely perhaps bringing back some of these creatures could be a big mistake and somehow make things worse for us. We still do not understand some of the relationships between different insects, fish and animals, sometimes the smallest change can bring about a very big change in our environment. Scientists are actually talking about bringing back animals whose relationships with the environment are not fully understood. Perhaps someday we will be able to figure out all these relationships, but for now we are treading on dangerous ground. It is sort of like the theory in time travel which states you should not change anything in the past, no matter how small, because it can have a large effect on the future. The same is true for bringing back ancient animals. An ecologist has said, “The conversation thus far has been focused on whether or not we can do this. Now, we are progressing toward the: Holy crap, we can—so should we?” He compared this to Dr. Frankenstein just putting the last stitches into his monster and pausing to consider if flipping the switch is a good idea. What effect would some of these animals have on the current animal population? He says one of the things to be considered is the cost of these de-extinction programs. Releasing some revived animals would change the biodiversity of some areas. Some of these animals would take over from other animals which might be destroyed. It was estimated for every animal revived at least two current species would be destroyed.
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