“The World Animal Foundation predicts that up to one-half of all species could become extinct by 2050. The UN has declared that 1,000,000 animal and plant species are threatened with extinction.” displayed by a Texas Biotechnology company, Colossal Biosciences.
As climate change accelerates, there has been a rapid advancement of biotechnology to recover extinct species. An extinct wolf known as Dire Wolf, alive during the late Pleistocene which marked as the “last ice age” and the end of many animals such as the Woolly Mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers, now has three puppies through a mix of genetic engineering and cloning.
Colossal Biosciences is one of many companies working on “de-extincting” several animals, many from the late pleistocene period. They announced on January 15 the newly raised $200 million dollars to bring back 3 extinct animals such as the Woolly Mammoth, Tasmanian Tiger, and the Dodo bird,
“The solution is de-extinction, a functional application of advanced gene editing technology aimed at rebuilding the DNA of lost megafauna and other creatures that had a measurable positive impact on our fragile ecosystems.” stated on Colossal BioSciences website.
Many scientists rushed to question the validity of such bold claims, as they disagree with Colossal’s definition of de-extinction. David Shiffman, biologist and research associate at Arizona University, argues,“This is not a dire wolf by any reasonable definition of a dire wolf,” he says. “This is a gray wolf that has had a tiny fraction of its genes modified to look more like what they think a dire wolf looked like. That means these animals are still gray wolves.”
Meanwhile Colossal BioScience’s lead scientist, Ben Novak, has come out and stated they were unaware of the media running with the story of resurrection, before updating their website with the official launch. He says, “de-extinction is not resurrection”, but rather the Dire Wolf is a step towards de-extinction. Novak defines de-extinction as working with a genetically similar breed altered to embody the characteristics of the extinct species with looks, behaviour and role in natural habitat. According to their own definition, the dire wolf isn’t considered de-extinct as it’s a slight genetic resemblance and they don’t know how it will behave in a similar environment.
“Even if the company had a 100% pure dire wolf genome, putting it into a wolf embryo and raising it in a modern environment isn’t resurrecting the species as it once was.” stated by C&EN, summarizing an interview with Sean Stankowski, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sussex.
Many scientists say this requires creating an animal with the complete set of genome, cells, and chromosomes. What may happen in a small improbable scenario is definitely not true for certain species such as the wooly mammoth, where only small fragments of DNA have been recovered.
“the de-extinction of another animal is perhaps more likely to come first. Scientists have already successfully mapped the genome of the passenger pigeon, which was a keystone species in North America… According to one estimate, the pigeons made up 40% of the bird population in North America. Their effect on the environment was substantial, and the effect of their loss was significant as well.” reported by St. Petersburg College Professor, Dr. Joann Vaughan.
Despite speculation regarding the probability of “de-extinction”, there are new opportunities to challenge the effects of deforestation, pollution and climate change. It would allow scientists to reverse ecosystem and biodiversity loss, while promoting new ecological diversity that has been gone for decades allowing for further genetic evolution with new traits.
Many scientists have backtracked biotechnology required for “de-extinction” such as the ethics sustainability, and ecological damages posed by cloning. The first thing many environmentalists and animal protection agencies are concerned about are politicians taking advantage of new technology as a ‘get out of jail for free card’.
Many questions are left unanswered, but concerns grow over corporations and lobbying to continue business as usual now if we can always bring animals back with needed DNA.
Written by Desiree Delgadillo, News-editor