A British biologist named John Gurdon won a Nobel Prize for discovering that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become “pluripotent.” That means mature cells can be converted into stem cells, so brain cells can be changed into heart, foot, or skin cells. That enabled Gurdon in 1962 to clone the first vertebrate in his lab, an African clawed frog, now considered an invasive species in most of Europe, China, and the U.S.
This was interesting mainly to scientists until 1996 when a Scottish lab cloned the first mammal, a sheep named Dolly, an overnight global media sensation. It proved that the nucleus from an adult cell, transferred into an unfertilized egg, can divide and develop in the same mysterious way it does in a real womb. Since then, many other mammals have been cloned, including deer, pigs, horses, and cattle.
It was only a matter of time before geneticists decided to try the same technology to bring back an extinct species, too. For years there has been speculation about recreating the wooly mammoth, for example, because there are frozen carcasses to work with. One of the nation’s most famous pioneers in this field is Dr. George Church, a Harvard genetics professor whose team has now broken the technological barrier, announcing the rebirth of the extinct prehistoric dire wolf, made famous in the Game of Thrones series, and in games like Dungeons and Dragons. It is now the world’s first successfully “de-extincted” animal. The dire wolf was extinct for centuries, but now three pups have been “born,” starting with DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull. Dr. Church’s company, created for the specific purpose of “de-extinction,” calls the dire wolves’ birth “a critical step on the pathway to the de-extinction of other target species.”
What species might that be? Or perhaps even more fundamentally – who will decide what extinct species should be brought back? The company plans eventually to restore the dire wolf on “expansive ecological preserves potentially on indigenous land.” What land where, and again, who will decide? The ethical questions accompanying mankind’s ability to recreate extinct species are profound.
Some projects involve expanding populations of species that are endangered but not yet gone, including red wolf populations Church’s company is already augmenting. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum expressed “excitement” about the possibility of someday eliminating the concept of endangered species. That isn’t much different, ethically, than captive breeding and release programs, which Colorado helped pioneer, especially with endangered fish. But cloning animals long extinct feels different. It seems obvious that the public might want something to say about whether their state is turned into Jurassic Park. Under the clear legal precedent that wildlife belongs to the states, it is highly doubtful that some private lab should be allowed to decide that it’s time to bring back Tyrannosaurus Rex. Just because they can do something does not necessarily mean they should.
Conversely, the fact that there are ethical questions doesn’t necessarily make it wrong, either. Numerous species are extinct because of the ill-advised actions of mankind. Steller’s sea cow was hunted to extinction because its blubber was valuable before there was oil. Dodo birds are extinct from the Island of Mauritius for one reason only – people killed them all. I don’t see any overwhelming ethical issue if they now decide to repopulate Mauritius with dodo birds. Similarly, researchers are working to recreate the half-horse-half-zebra quagga, the last of which died in 1883, and the Tasmanian tiger, which died off in the 1930s.
People might have different views, though, about the saber-toothed tiger, which once roamed throughout the Americas. Or the megalodon shark, a 60-foot monster three times larger than the largest great white shark known today. Or even the passenger pigeon, once the most abundant bird in North America, whose migrating flocks could darken the sky for hours – in case you think today’s pigeons are sometimes a problem. Or the massive and mean buffalo called aurochs, which once dominated Europe. Does anyone really want to recreate vicious predators like the velociraptor or allosaurus, just because it may be possible?
Dolly the sheep lived seven years, where she raised six lambs and became the ancestor of a significant flock. Those sheep are not hurting anyone, but if they had been T-Rex’s? The point is that before private companies and individual labs go further down the “de-extinction” road, some public decision-making process is needed. It matters a great deal how such decisions are made, and by whom.
