"De-extinction": the new frontier or scientific circus?

There is no doubt that the impact of human development and negligence has caused the extinction of a lot of species. The thylacine, passenger pigeon and dodo for starters. The black rhino, orangutan and hawksbill turtle, among many others, are hanging on by a thread. In Australia the antechinus, mountain pygmy possum and orange-bellied parrot are on the critical list and loss of habitat is posing a growing threat to our beloved koala, which could be gone within 25 years if there is not significant intervention to ensure their preservation.

So when news broke this week that the dire wolf, a species extinct for the last 10,000 years, has been genetically reproduced and brought back, the popular media went into a frenzy of congratulatory glee. All those creatures we've hunted into oblivion can be restored! Let us rejoice!

Umm, not so fast.

Let's face it, apart from zoological paleontologists, who'd even heard of a dire wolf until the TV adaptation of George RR Martin's  Game of Thrones series hit the screen*? Dire wolf remains were first found in 1854 and named Canis dirus in 1858. Larger than a grey wolf with a broader head and larger teeth, they were extant across the Americas until, it is estimated, about 10,000 years ago.

Crucially, we don't know what caused their extinction and this is relevant in terms of resurrecting any extinct species. Was it climate change as the last ice age ended? Catastrophic ecosystem change? Did their prey disappear? All of the above? Possibly all of the above, but the really important question here is if we start resurrecting extinct species, what do we do with them? The environment now bears very little resemblance to when these animals disappeared, and it's likely that it was environmental change that caused that disappearance. So what do the scientists behind this 'miracle' plan to do with their no-longer-extinct animals?

Consider the nature of a wild Siberian tiger. They are apex predators. Highly territorial and roaming typically large territories, they are solitary by nature. They hunt elk and wild boar and generally avoid humans and human settlement. If you had the last Siberian tiger in existence in a zoo, would you actually have a Siberian tiger? You would certainly have something that looked like a Siberian tiger and had the DNA of a Siberian tiger, but unless your last remaining Siberian tiger was roaming free and solitary to hunt across its territory, all you'd have would be an animal with the appropriate DNA. 

Same goes for dire wolves. Bringing them back from extinction might be a neat scientific trick (or, if you prefer, a massive breakthrough in genetic technology), but they can't be released into the wild, because the 'wild' they came from no longer exists.

Now we get to the central question: has the company behind this miracle actually brought an extinct species back? 

No.

What they have created is three genetically modified gray wolves. New Scientist flat out refutes the claim that Colossal Biosciences has resurrected an extinct species. After 10,000, any organic material left from an extinct species will not yield a full genome sequence. Colossal Biosciences was using a fossilised tooth and shard of bone from dire wolves, but in order to construct a full genome sequence, they had to synthetically replicate the DNA and then identified specific genes or sequences that were different from those in modern gray wolves. They edited modern gray wolf cells by inserting the lab-synthesized versions of those dire wolf gene sequences - not the original fossil DNA, but digital reconstructions of what that DNA would've produced. Anthropology 365 provides more of the technical explanation.

It's all very clever, of course, and provides a wealth of scientific information that can be potentially used in identifying and curing genetic diseases and problems. But what Colossal Biosciences has produced are not dire wolves. They are cute, genetically modified versions of modern gray wolves.

Extinction is forever. Once a species is gone, it cannot be brought back no matter how clever the technology. Species are not just DNA: they are a combination of their DNA with their inherent nature and their interaction with the natural environment. Get any of those factors just a teensy bit wrong, and the consequences could be dire. (Jurassic Park, anyone?)

Claiming to be able to bring back extinct animals is simply telling modern rapacious society to continue building roads and cities over animal habitat, continue pumping poisons into the ocean and the air, continue creating billions of tonnes of toxic waste every year because it's OK - we can bring extinct species back after we kill them off.

No, it's not OK.

 

*I've never watched a single episode and gave up on the first book after five pages. Ghastly.

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