Colossal Biosciences claims to have brought dire wolves back from extinction.
Colossal Biosciences claims to have brought dire wolves back from extinction.
Since the beginning of time, animals have fought to survive, species have vanished, and today it’s no different because more than one million are on the brink.
With a new Jurassic World movie around the corner, what has been a science fiction concept for decades might be closer toreality.
Colossal Biosciences claims it has “successfully de-extincted” the dire wolf, a species that ceased to exist about 10,000 years ago.
The biotech company, backed by big-name investors and celebrities alike, has a goal to bring back the likes of the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, the northern white rhino and the dodo.
But, even if it’s successful, is it right? And, have we learned anything from the happenings in Jurassic Park?
University of Otago department of zoology associate professor Nic Rawlence told The Front Page he challenges the term “de-extinction”.
“The technology they’ve developed is stunning and will have very real-world conservation benefits, but it’s not de-extinction. This is a genetically modified, designer grey wolf.
“If you think of all the individual DNA letters in a genome, which are millions and millions of them, they’ve only done 20 modifications to that genome. It’s only a small number of modifications. But, if we think of functional de-extinction, all they’ve got is something that looks like a dire wolf,” he said.
SOUND ON. You’re hearing the first howl of a dire wolf in over 10,000 years. Meet Romulus and Remus—the world’s first de-extinct animals, born on October 1, 2024.
The dire wolf has been extinct for over 10,000 years. These two wolves were brought back from extinction using… pic.twitter.com/wY4rdOVFRH
Even if it were possible to bring back a species, Rawlence said, the ecosystem it was part of no longer exists.
“If you try to de-extinct a moa, New Zealand’s only got 25% forest cover. At the time of human arrival, it was 80% forest cover... Central Otago, for example, used to be covered in lancewood and kōwhai, which is weird to think of, but there’s no analogue of that anywhere.
“So you haven’t got the ecosystems for these animals to go back into. A lot of the ecosystems have been highly modified, they’re full of predators. But, also, if you are gonna introduce animals into an ecosystem, you need them to be genetically healthy, not inbred. Think Tutankhamun married his sister, the Habsburgs out of Europe, or even Queen Victoria married her cousin.
“For a population to be genetically healthy, you need at least 500 individuals, which is a very tall order indeed,” he said.
The technology could instead be used in ongoing conservation efforts, Rawlence said.
“You could use it to reintroduce lost genetic variation back into kākāpō or takahē so that they have the evolutionary potential to respond to ongoing climate change or diseases. In kākāpō, you’ve got aspergillosis, lung fungus, or crusty bum.
“So we could use that technology to help what we’ve got rather than, in my view, assuaging human guilt for causing extinctions.”
These genetically modified mice embody several woolly mammoth-like traits, according to Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences. Photo / Colossal Biosciences
In Colossal Bioscience’s efforts to de-extinct the woolly mammoth, it has bred genetically modified mice with mammoth-inspired traits, such as woolly coats and cold tolerance.
The company says the loss of these large, cold-tolerant mammoths over the past 10,000 years has stripped the ecosystem of the Siberian tundra – a grassland that once efficiently absorbed carbon.
“If the mammoth steppe ecosystem could be revived, it could help in reversing the rapid warming of the climate and more pressingly, protect the Arctic’s permafrost – one of the world’s largest carbon reservoirs,” its website says.
“How many hundreds of millions of dollars are you going to have to spend to bring back enough mammoths to trample Siberia? It won’t be 500 mammoths, it’s probably gonna be thousands. I think the money’s better spent elsewhere,” Rawlence said.
“Sometimes conservation can be sexy, kākāpō or takahē, but often the non-sexy species are the ones that are just as highly endangered, and trying to get money is a lot easier if people are investing in something akin to Jurassic Park.”
Listen to the full episode to hear more about whether we’ve learned anything from Jurassic Park and which “un-sexy” species need the most help.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
