I have been following programs for genetic cloning, editing, and natural breeding practices for years.
I have... Very mixed feelings. The optimist in me is singing with glorious hope because this technique has the potential to genuinely help preserve and save current threatened species who have extremely low generic diversity.
And... It has a lot of potential to cause terrible harm, both via companies possibly being allowed to put patents on wildlife dna and frankly dna at all-- they've already made a terrible mess of the plant side of things
Monsanto? Big seed and pesticide company? That have literally been one of if not the main source of healthy farming practices in America falling apart as unsustainable.... Not because the practice itself was bad, but because when guys in suits show up with threats of expensive lawsuits with their fancy briefcases, to harass a farmer who collected their own seed from their crops to simply plant again next year... Because "we now own your seeds because the field nearby from another farmer's planting pollinated your crops (something you can't really hecking control in outdoor big grows and sometimes even tiny plots!) so you either owe us money or you have to destroy All Your Harvested Seeds"
I'm not joking.
There is also the concern over if these scientists working with the animals in question-- do they have the true empathy and actually analytical observational skills to educate a different species than Homo Sapien on how to be themselves? Bringing back the genetics even if these puppies were from direct ancient DNA cloning, does not... Bring the culture of the species back.
People like to think that mysterious Instinct guides animals and teaches them everything. It doesn't. It helps them not die. Instinct does not teach them their own species language-- and i do mean language --nor how to behave in the larger ecosystem.
I forget where this happened, but i read an article some time back on an elephant preservation project I'm which they relocated several juvenile elephants, but decided mid project not to move the giant extra heavy adult bill elephants because of the material cost of a harness and rig heavy duty enough to handle their bulk and weight.
The result?
Absolute carnage. from the young elephants without parents to teach them not to just gore all the wildlife they come across. People were finding lions and other animals just. Pointlessly murdered and savaged --
-- they moved a few of the adult elephants and within a short frame of time (can't recall if it was weeks or a few months) the carnage stopped, because the adults promptly taught the kids to knock that crap out and here's how to be an elephant as part of the ecosystem sustainably.
How can we assume we won't see similar issues with species brought back without any of their direct ancestors to teach them?
Moreover.... There's also to consider, how much pain and death is caused in both surrogate mothers and in the Failed Offspring of generic editing or cloning attempts. I still remember the hard data reports from cloning projects years ago, and a while lot of failed pregnancies and unpleasant puppy fates for the ones who didn't come out As Intended.
So... I have very mixed feelings. I'm choosing to be optimistic, but it's really hard when you already have really Stupid People who are now claiming we can get rid of the Endangered Species list and all is associated protections by using this Direwolf project as an example to go "wow look! We can undo our mistakes! So we can keep making them exactly as before it's no big deal anymore we can just bring whoever we want back "
It is never that simple, it will never be that simple, and i wish more people would realize that other species aren't just pretty ornaments or walking meat bags without emotion or thought. They're as complicated as we are.
All that said, yeah, i still cried like a baby hearing those tiny howls. It's a pretty dang huge event in conservation and in science, even with the dangers associated. Maybe this project will at last get more public interest from everyday people who normally don't ever give a second thought to the complexities of ecosystems and other species lives
People are predictable. Next to no one wants to talk about the prairie chicken or hog nosed snake or any number of tiny fish under threat of extinction from lost habitat and poor land management practices. But most people are charmed by a more familiar "cute puppy" and willing to follow *that* conservation project, which could introduce them to the larger topic as a whole.
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