Sir Peter Jackson is backing de-extinction plans to bring the South Island giant moa back from the dead. Video / Herald NOW
The Greens have reacted to plans to bring the South Island giant moa back from the dead, saying that the money would be better spent trying to save endangered species.
It was revealed today that United States-based Colossal Biosciences, which is also behind de-extinction projectsfor the woolly mammoth and dodo, is already working on the return of the moa, which died out six centuries ago.
Kiwi film director Sir Peter Jackson is backing the move, along with the principal southern iwi, Ngāi Tahu.
Sir Peter Jackson and Colossal Biosciences chief executive Ben Lamm with some moa bones. Photo / Supplied
However, the Green Party believes that funding would be better off going towards “ensuring the survival of our present-day taonga species”.
Green Party co-leader and conservation spokesperson, Marama Davidson said there are currently more than 4000 native species at risk of extinction.
“This Government is pushing our taonga species over the edge with legislation that enables killing of native animals, more mining, thoughtless fast-track projects, and significant underfunding of the Department of Conservation.
“New Zealand sea lions were officially declared endangered just a few months ago,” she said.
Moa (dinornis robustus) stood up to 3.6m tall with neck outstretched and weighed approximately 230kgs.
“There is huge value in innovative, blue-skies research happening in Aotearoa.
“Our science system should be led for the public good, not left to be decided by the interests of those with money.
“Bringing moa back would be nice, but at a time when we are battling to keep thousands of other taonga species alive, it hardly seems a priority.”
Work on the dramatic Jurassic Park-style de-extinction scheme is under way, the Herald has learned.
Archaeologists have already visited caves known to contain significant moa subfossil deposits, which could be used to sequence and rebuild genomes for the toweringly tall lost birds.
The Texan billionaire behind the company is bullish on a timeline for the moa’s return.
“I’m confident this will be under a decade,” Colossal chief executive Ben Lamm told the Herald, nearly 30 years after Dolly the sheep became the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.
“I’m bullish, so I will say we’re going to try to get it done in five years. Peter Jackson [...] gives me lots of feedback, quite often, as an investor, supporter, and initiator of the project, that we need to get it sooner.
“But I think it’s a five to eight-year project, and as an eternal optimist, I think it will be on the earlier stages of that. This isn’t a 30-year project.”
Ben Lamm and Sir Peter Jackson are bullish on timelines for the ambitious moa project. Photo / Supplied
Jackson, the star director behind The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Beatles: Get Back, and They Shall Not Grow Old, was an early investor in Colossal Biosciences, having reportedly poured in more than $10 million.
Experts from the Christchurch-based Ngāi Tahu Research Centre, set up in 2011 to support the intellectual growth and development of the principal iwi of the South Island, will direct “all aspects of the project”.
The flightless moa (dinornis robustus) was endemic to New Zealand and consisted of nine distinct species, ranging from turkey-sized species to the South Island giant moa, which stood up to 3.6m tall with its neck outstretched and weighed about 230kg.
Recent research has found that moa populations were stable until human arrival, and extinction happened within 100-150 years of Polynesian settlement, primarily due to hunting and habitat change.
Some scientists have argued that revived breeds, such as the dire wolf, are just modern animals with DNA from extinct animals added, rather than a genuinely resurrected extinct species.
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,” Rawlence said.
