De-extinction or pre-extinction? Biotech company's resurrected 'dire wolves' raise questions
American biotech company Colossal Biosciences has announced they have created the "world's first successfully de-extincted animal," using ancient DNA and gene-editing technology to create hybrid puppies that they are calling resurrected dire wolves.
So far, three snow white pups have been born — two males and a female — and they're being kept in an undisclosed location in the northern U.S., a region where ancient dire wolves likely roamed before going extinct 13,000 years ago.
This is controversial for a number of reasons. First, the new animals are not real dire wolves, they are hybrids that resemble the extinct animals. The company made 20 edits on 14 grey wolf genes to create traits specific to dire wolves, like white coats, bigger heads and longer fur. But grey wolves have more than 20,000 genes, so the newcomers are still mostly grey wolves.
It is not known whether these animals will be able to breed with each other.
The company also has plans to bring back the woolly mammoth using modern elephants as a template. They have already created a woolly mouse by editing mouse genes with known woolly mammoth mutations. The company has also said it's exploring reviving the dodo, using a chicken as a template.
If successful, these so-called de-extinct animals will be unique in the world. However, while it would be an amazing experience to see a living woolly mammoth — or an elephant that resembles one — that animal could end up as an oddity in a zoo, captive and alone for the rest of its life.
Colossal Biosciences chief scientist Beth Shapiro told Quirks & Quarks via email that is not their intention.
"While there's something poignant about a lone mammoth facing an altered planet, Colossal's vision is decidedly not that. Our approach focuses on establishing viable populations over time, not just individual animals," she wrote.
"For these social groups to thrive, they need a place to live to which they are adapted. Ultimately, we need not only to recreate lost species, but also actively restore aspects of their original ecosystems — bridging conservation and restoration."
One problem is that the ice age environment these animals lived in no longer exists. The Arctic and the rest of the planet has warmed a great deal since they inhabited it, and the trend continues today. That means the animals will have to adapt to a new environment, or special habitats created to care for them.
While the production of genetically modified animals that resemble extinct species is a novel demonstration of the power of modern gene-editing techniques, it would require a tremendous effort, including significant technological breakthroughs and millions — if not billions — of dollars to bring back thundering herds of woolly mammoths or sky-darkening flocks of passenger pigeons.
There are also ethical considerations, considering cloned animals have a low survival rate and there are serious risks to the surrogate mothers.
It invites the question of whether those resources would be better used to halt the extinction of current species, which humans are driving at an alarming rate. A 2017 study found that, given limited conservation resources, the cost of just protecting animals that had been brought back from extinction would mean the decline and potential loss of more species that might currently be on the brink, leading to net biodiversity loss.
These considerations are something we've talked about on Quirks & Quarks many times, including with Beth Shapiro herself.
Many scientists have suggested that we are now in what is known as the sixth great extinction in the history of our planet — the previous one being the catastrophe that ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Species are being driven out of existence by human activity, including the loss of their natural habitat, and climate change. Some estimate that the current rate of extinction is somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 times above the natural extinction rate.
Colossal says that their work will help with conservation efforts by bringing back creatures whose ecosystem functions are now missing on the planet. But bringing the current extinction event to a halt will have more far reaching effects than a few wildlife refuges for rare beasts.
Working at the pre-extinction side of the process could solve many other environmental problems that are affecting the human species as well.
After all, if we can just stop destroying the environment and driving these animals to extinction, we won't have to worry about the ethics or controversies surrounding bringing them back from the dead.
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