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DILEMMA: SHOULD WE BRING BACK EXTINCT ANIMALS? Friday 17th March 2017

THE BIG DEBATE

THE BIG DEBATE:Should we bring back extinct animals?

THE DILEMMAScientists have recently announced they are on the brink of resurrecting the woolly mammoth, a huge beast that roamed the Earth some 4,000 years ago. The scientist leading the “de-extinction” effort said that a team of experts from Harvard University in the US is just two years away from creating a hybrid embryo. This embryo would see elements of the woolly mammoth programmed into an Asian elephant. The mammoth genes are spliced into the elephant DNA using a “gene-editing” tool. The embryo would be partly an elephant, but include mammoth features such as small ears, long shaggy hair and cold-adapted blood.

The idea of bringing extinct animals back to life using science has been discussed for years, but with major advancements in DNA technology, what were once dreams are now becoming realities. In 2003, a team of Spanish and French scientists brought a kind of wild goat known as a bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex, back from extinction (but it only survived for a few minutes). The debate has gone on ever since. Is it right to bring back animals that once roamed the Earth? Or should we not meddle with nature, even if we can? And shouldn’t we focus on preserving those that are alive now?

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OPINION“Many animals are gone because of human error, so we need to use technology to recover them.” – Katsuhiko Hayashi, Biologist at Kyushu University, Japan

DNA – Deoxyribonucleic acid, which carries the genetic code of a living thing. This code makes one living thing distinctive from another.

EXTINCTION – When an animal no longer exists. Causes of extinction can be natural or caused by human activity.

EMBRYO – An unborn animal in the very early stages of growth.

GENES – Units that carry the information that determines an animal or human’s features or characteristics. Genes can determine everything from eye colour to behaviour. They are passed down from generation to generation.

NATURAL EXTINCTION RATE – What the rate of extinctions would be if humans were not around.

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DILEMMA: SHOULD WE BRING BACK EXTINCT ANIMALS? Friday 17th March 2017

THE BIG DEBATE

facts & figures The rapid loss of species we are seeing today is estimated by

experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate.

It is estimated that more than 5 BILLION species that once existed on Earth have become extinct.

There are nearly 100 animals on the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) list of critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable or near threatened species.

Around 100 species disappear from our planet every day, according to some estimates.

Scientists think at least 10 animal species have been made extinct in the past 200 years due to human activity.

CANDIDATE ANIMALSIf scientists are to go ahead with de-extinction (reversing extinction), probably their biggest dilemma will be deciding which species to bring back. What makes one animal deserve to be brought back to life more than another?

Well, some scientists reckon that an animal’s usefulness to the wider ecosystem (a community of organisms that interact with each other) plays a big part in deciding whether efforts should be made to bring it back. If one species is responsible for the wellbeing and survival of lots of other species, some scientists think it is worth de-extincting it.

Another factor that some scientists think is important is timescale. If an animal became extinct more than 50 years ago, they argue, it would no longer fit in naturally on Earth, as the environment has changed so much.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE LIKELY DE-EXTINCTION CANDIDATES:

Moa This large bird was unable to fly and used to be very common in New Zealand until its extinction around 600 years ago due to hunting and deforestation. The moa’s absence has had a direct effect on plants that relied on it to spread seeds. They are struggling to survive. It could be a successful de-extinction candidate, because the area where it lived doesn’t have many other species living there, so the moa could flourish once more. But the moa’s genes are so unique that it would be difficult to find an animal to host the embryo and give birth to the baby moa.

A Cuban stamp celebrating the moa

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DILEMMA: SHOULD WE BRING BACK EXTINCT ANIMALS? Friday 17th March 2017

THE BIG DEBATE

Dodo Probably the most famous of all extinct animals, this ground bird gave birth to the expression “dead as a dodo”. Resident on the island of Mauritius, the dodo was flightless like the moa and became extinct in the 17th century due to exploitation by humans and due to introduced species such as rats and pigs, which ate dodo eggs. In 2002, scientists worked out that the dodo belongs in the dove and pigeon family, and so may be easier to bring back than previously thought. The dodo is less significant in terms of the ecosystem, but it is probably the most popular extinct animal.

Lesser stick-nest rat If the only reason to bring back an extinct animal is for its benefit to other creatures, the lesser stick-nest rat would be a top contender. It is thought it became extinct in the last few decades, after playing an important role in the Australian desert, where it built large nests using sticks. Some were as tall as one metre and three metres long. These nests became a home to loads of other creatures, from insects to reptiles. According to one expert, a large population of these rats could be built up in just 5-10 years if it were de-extincted.

Gastric brooding frogs These frogs, which lived in Australia, were known for their ‘gastric brooding’, where eggs were kept in the stomach of the female until the tadpoles were ready to leave through her mouth. The trouble is these frogs were probably made extinct because of a fungus in the wild that still exists, so they might not last very long if they’re brought back to Earth.

Aurochs A type of wild “supercow”, for thousands of years the aurochs were the largest land mammals in Europe, until humans reduced their numbers. The last of the aurochs died in Poland in 1627, which was one of the first recorded cases of extinction. Experts now say that the loss of the aurochs had a terrible effect on the overall variety of wildlife in Europe. They say that the aurochs’ large appetite for grazing provided a natural “gardening service” that maintained landscapes and created the conditions for other species to thrive.

Quagga A sub-species of the zebra, the quagga lived in South Africa until the 19th century. It looked like a cross between a zebra and a horse, with brown and white stripes on the head and neck, brown upper parts and a white belly, tail and legs. There were quaggas kept at London Zoo, but they became extinct in the wild due to hunting.

CANDIDATE ANIMALSSOME OF THE LIKELY DE-EXTINCTION CANDIDATES CONTINUED:

The dodo

The auroch

A quagga at London Zoo in 1870

Biodiversity Heritage Library

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DILEMMA: SHOULD WE BRING BACK EXTINCT ANIMALS? Friday 17th March 2017

THE BIG DEBATE

Cloning – The “Jurassic Park technique”, this involves taking a sample of DNA from a part of the extinct animal, which could be found in a fossil, or in bones kept in a museum. The animal’s complete set of genes (known as a genome) is then reconstructed. This is an enormous task. The embryo would then need to be developed inside a mum who would have to come from an existing species that is as close as possible to the extinct one.

Genetic Engineering – This would be possible for more recently extinct animals. If a close relative of a lost species is still alive, scientists can alter the genome to “reverse engineer” the extinct species. One species that might be brought back to life this way is the passenger pigeon, which has been extinct since 1914. Scientists would use its closest living relative, the band-tailed pigeon, and study the genome of it and the extinct bird. They’d work out the differences and then alter the genome of the band-tailed pigeon to genetically engineer a new bird that is identical to the passenger pigeon. But there isn’t any guarantee that the new passenger pigeon would have the same behaviour as the original.

Cross-breeding – This method involves creating a species by getting existing species to mate in order to gradually restore the genome and physical make-up of the extinct animal. Scientists are developing this technique to bring back the aurochs, and they think this could be a better way of de-extincting, because it would use animals that are already adapted to the modern world, rather than trying to recreate an animal from a very different time.

DNA

The passenger pigeonDolly the cloned sheep

The first clone of a living animal was Dolly the sheep in 1996. Since then, scientists have cloned numerous creatures, including camels, cats, monkeys and rabbits. Creating new versions of extinct animals is a little trickier, as the species isn’t around to take DNA from, or to act as a parent for the newborn animal.

Biotechnology is the name given to the type of science that would be used to bring extinct animals back to life. Here are the main three de-extinction methods:

how it’s done

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DILEMMA: SHOULD WE BRING BACK EXTINCT ANIMALS? Friday 17th March 2017

THE BIG DEBATE

WHAT ABOUT THE LIVING?De-extincting is all well and good, but it’s expensive and time-consuming. There are scientists who think that resources, money and time would be better spent trying to keep our endangered species alive. There are several animals at risk of extinction, such as rhinos, the orangutan and the Bengal tiger. Instead of focusing on bringing back those that have already gone, should science not be putting all its efforts into protecting those who still live?

The orangutan is at risk of extinction

The passenger pigeon THE DANGERS OF ‘PLAYING GOD’Is it up to humans to ‘play God’ by controlling life in this way? Some people think that just because we can, it doesn’t mean we should. They argue that, although some species have become extinct due to human behaviour and climate change, many have not, and it is not our place to control and change the course of nature. Is it a good thing to decide which animals from Earth’s past get to live again, and which don’t?

There is also an unintentional danger that comes with ‘playing God’. Many animals that are now extinct lived hundreds of years ago, when Earth was a very different place. They roamed the planet at a time before factories, planes and cars, when the population was much smaller than today’s 7.5 billion. A lot of extinct animals may not be able to cope on Earth any more.

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DILEMMA: SHOULD WE BRING BACK EXTINCT ANIMALS? Friday 17th March 2017

THE BIG DEBATE

YES, WE SHOULD BRING BACK EXTINCT ANIMALS

NO, WE SHOULDN’T BRING BACK EXTINCT ANIMALS

1. The US is just one country – It may be a superpower but America is just one country, and there are more than 190 others signed up to the Paris Agreement. If everybody does their bit, climate change can still be tackled.

2. States are stepping up – The president and national government may have pulled out of the Paris Agreement, but at least individual states are working hard to keep it alive – and that makes a huge difference.

3. There is simply no other choice – Climate change is too serious an issue for the rest of the world to give up on. It’s unfortunate that President Trump has pulled his country out of the deal, but the rest of us have no choice but to take big steps to reduce pollution and global warming.

1. Let’s focus on preventing extinction – So many species are at risk of extinction right now. Our efforts and money would be better spent protecting endangered animals rather than bringing back those who have already gone.

2. The animals may not cope well – It’s dangerous to ‘play god’. We could have good intentions, but bringing back some animals to a new and very different planet than the one they once lived on could harm them. They may not survive very long.

3. We should not mess with nature – Extinctions are an unfortunate aspect of life on a planet such as Earth that contains so many different species. It is not up to humans to interfere with nature’s course.

FirstNews

DILEMMA: SHOULD WE BRING BACK EXTINCT ANIMALS? Friday 17th March 2017

THE BIG DEBATE

What should our priority be: protecting the living animals or bringing back the dead ones?

Should scientists try to bring back animals made extinct only by human behaviour?

Would you be interested in seeing extinct animals like the dodo or quagga on Earth once more?

If it’s okay for humans to stop sick animals from dying, is it all right for humans to bring back extinct

Do some animals deserve to be brought back from extinction more than others?

Is cloning animals acceptable or could it be dangerous?

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