Futurist Makes A Compelling Argument For Why We Should Bring Animals Back From Extinction

Last March, scientists met at a TEDx conference to discuss which extinct animals would be good candidates to bring back from the dead, called de-extinction.

One year later, futurist and environmentalist Stewart Brand appeared on Tuesday at a Ted conference in Vancouver to present the status of a few de-extinction projects.

At the paleogenomics lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for example, lab leader Beth Shapiro and a young scientist, Ben Novak, are trying to revive the first passenger pigeon by altering the DNA of the sally band-tailed pigeon, the passenger's closest genetic relative. A flock of band-tailed pigeons, Brand said, "is being groomed to become the first surrogate parents of passenger pigeons."

Keith Schengili-Roberts

The passenger pigeon went from numbering in the billions to being wiped out by the 19th century.

In another part of the world, Russian scientist Sergey Zimov has created a preserve in Siberia called Pleistocene Park that attempts to restore the type of grassland that existed when woolly mammoths called that place home. Zimov hopes to eventually re-introduce these hairy creatures to the environment.

While the thought of having herds of woolly mammoths running around doesn't immediately sound like a great idea, Brand makes a compelling case for why we should pursue the technique.

De-extinction is not just about reversing extinction, Brand says, but about helping to prevent extinction. It "could help revolutionize conservation," he said.

That's because de-extinction can be used to combat what's called the "extinction vortex" when animal populations fall, inbreeding becomes more common and species go extinct by loss of genetic variation. Endangered species like the black-footed ferret could potentially be saved by introducing old genes into current populations, Brand said.

Brand is the founder and former editor of the Whole Earth Catalog and the co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, an institution that supports projects that promote long-term thinking.

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Futurist Makes A Compelling Argument For Why We Should Bring Animals Back From Extinction