Should We Bring Back Extinct Species?

Imagine coming face-to-face with a woolly mammoth! Those giant, hairy animals became extinct nearly 4,000 years ago. But what if they could be brought back from the dead? A company called Colossal wants to do just that within the next few years. It recently raised $15 million to help fund its work.

The process of reviving long-gone species is known as de-extinction. In this case, Colossal plans to take DNA from a frozen mammoth and copy it into the cells of an Asian elephant, the mammoth’s closest living relative. Scientists say the resulting creature would be a mammoth-elephant hybrid nearly identical to the ancient beasts.

People who favor bringing back extinct animals say doing so could help repair damaged ecosystems, because when one species dies out, many others are negatively affected.

But opponents say de-extinction isn’t worth the time or money. After all, many habitats have changed so much that some extinct species would have a hard time surviving in the modern world. Instead of trying to bring them back, critics say, we should focus on preventing animals from dying out in the first place.

Should we bring back extinct species? Two scientists weigh in.

Bringing back extinct species can have several benefits. For one thing, it could help heal damaged ecosystems. That’s because it’s just an extension of good old-fashioned conservation work. In fact, conservationists have already had success returning living species to areas where they had died out. One example is the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park.

Wolves’ extermination from that region nearly a century ago led to environmental problems, such as the decline of certain trees. But just 26 years after scientists returned wolves to Yellowstone, that ecosystem is much healthier. By eating elk, which feed on trees, wolves give trees a chance to grow. Young trees attract beavers, which make dams that draw birds. Today, many species thrive in the park. De-extinction could have the same effect elsewhere.

For example, more than 3 billion passenger pigeons once lived in North America. Their huge flocks helped create woodlands that hundreds of plants and animals now rely on. Since the pigeons’ extinction, diversity in forests has declined, leaving many species struggling. Bringing the pigeons back may help save some of those species.

We should focus on bringing back animals that could help other living things. Doing so would be a great victory for conservation.

—Ben J. Novak
Lead Scientist, Revive & Restore

By the time you go to bed tonight, a species that has lived on Earth for millions of years may be gone forever. Scientists believe that somewhere between 200 and 2,000 species of animals and plants become extinct every year.

De-extinction is said to be a way to reverse this awful trend, but the argument doesn’t hold up. For the millions of dollars it would cost to bring one species back from the dead and support it in the wild, we could save dozens of others from becoming extinct in the first place.

Scientists have limited resources, so deciding to spend millions to bring back one species means letting others go extinct. Many animals—such as tigers, elephants, rhinos, and gorillas—are in danger of disappearing. Why not focus on keeping them alive?

Bringing back extinct species is risky. In most cases, their habitats are gone or have seriously changed. Mammoths, for example, became extinct after the Arctic began warming thousands of years ago. It’s much warmer there now and getting hotter every year. If we were to bring back mammoths, we’d probably need to spend a huge amount of money to keep them alive. There is also a risk that reintroducing long-extinct species would harm existing ecosystems.

De-extinction simply isn’t a good investment. It may be interesting science, but it’s not conservation.

—Joseph Bennett
Associate Professor of Biology, Carleton University