DE-EXTINCTION

REASONS FOR

                          REASONS AGAINST

Humans ‘played God’ when we exterminated the animals.  Michael Archer, a palaeontologist at the University of New South Wales, Australia, maintains that “if we are talking about species we drove extinct, then I think we have an obligation to [de-extinct them]. 

                             It is ‘playing God’.

If we can do it, why shouldn’t we try?  It would be brilliant to see a sabre-toothed tiger, for example. 

 We don’t know what    the re-introduction of        the species might do – it could cause the extinction of something else, for example.

Return of an extinct species could benefit diminished ecosystems.  For example, herbivorous woolly mammoths in Siberia maintained the grassland by breaking up the soil and fertilizing it with their manure.  Once extinct, moss and boreal forest took over and transformed the Siberian grassland into less productive tundra.  Returning the mammoth could bring back the carbon-fixing grass and reduce the greenhouse-gas-releasing tundra.  

It is possible that the re-introduced species would impossible to maintain – it could be susceptible to a host of viruses, bacteria etc.

De-extinction would enhance biodiversity.

For distantly extinct species, we are unlikely to understand exactly what the species needs in order to survive in terms of habitat.  Our climate and topography are now vastly different from that when the dinosaurs, for eg., were alive.

How different would de-extinction be from the breeding and re-introduction of currently endangered species in the wild? 

We have enough difficulty re-introducing species that are not yet extinct.  Take the Arabian oryx, for example.  Re-introduced into the wild from a captive breeding programme, poaching reduced the 450 oryx to fewer than 4 breeding pairs.

If the de-extinction process required any form of engineering to the DNA (recombination, or splicing for example) it might be possible that the natural instincts of the species could be lost.  This might make it unable to survive alone.

De-extinction could advance the science of preventing further extinction – study of the genome might reveal why a species was so vulnerable that it became extinct.

Until we understand why the species went extinct, any efforts to revive them are a colossal waste of money.

Money – zoos would be the initial home of de-extinct species and people would pay to see them.  Zoo entrance fees, like it or not, provide a considerable source of funding for conservation.

It is expensive and difficult.  Shouldn’t we use that time, money and expertise elsewhere such as preventing the future extinction of currently endangered species?

The prospect of re-introducing de-extinct species would help in the re-wilding of the countryside:  we would need somewhere for all these de-extinct species to live. 

De-extinct species would need a safe home, as well as the necessary food plants/animals etc. to survive.  Poaching and hunting would need to be policed. 

De-extinction would be a step towards righting the past wrongs of humans when extinction occurred due to hunting, or deforestation for example.  The Bucardo died out purely because of hunting.

De-extinction promotes the idea that, with technology, we can un-do the damage that humans have caused.  That suggestion, that science can fix human damage, will lead to humans not caring about causing damage in the first place.  It is not solving the problems that conservation of our current ecosystems tries to address.  Instead, at worst, it seduces people into thinking that molecular gimmickry can save the world.

De-extinction is a glamorous and exciting proposition.  As such people will be willing to fund it, and most probably at the expense of other, arguably more important research. 

We would need to clone/create both a male and a female and then breed a viable, self-maintaining population.

If de-extinction results in a ‘freak show’ is that fair?

Is a de-extinct animal the real thing or just an expensive forgery?  A nice chunk of cut glass looks, to most people, just like a diamond.  But you wouldn’t feel the same having it on your finger as a ring knowing it wasn’t real.