The Last of Their Kind
nautil.us
nautil.us
The root causes must be addressed, this is just a bandaid (if it works at all). Whatever put Northern Rhinos at risk will still exist. They don't breed easily, what will change for the new hybrids, if they live at all? And if these Rhino hybrids don't behave (mating-wise) like a Northern Rhino, then what exactly has been achieved, other than breeding a look-alike?
Plus there's a whiff of marketing/publicity for these businesses like Colossal that I'm not thrilled about. Their "direwolf resurrection" project seems to me an entirely marketing-driven effort (as well as misleading), as is their mammoth project.
I admit I like the idea of "resurrecting" extinct species Jurassic Park-style for the sake of coolness, but is it wise and is it where our efforts should be spent? Instead of these "spectacular" efforts shouldn't we focus on conservation of species which can still be saved, and in changing the conditions that put them at risk?
The point is that I consider these efforts misguided publicity stunts. I think the efforts should be spent in actual conservation, rather than dubious attempts at creating hybrid specimens, without addressing what made the originals extinct or at risk.
If the effort is fundamentally misguided, no attempt at getting it right is going to be helpful. Are they going to do what, create better hybrids?
Same with the direwolf. Those aren't direwolves, they are gray wolves with some edited genes from ancient DNA direwolves. They are "direwolf lookalikes" (imperfectly! Even Colossal admits the white coats are not right), not direwolves, so not a true resurrection of the species (and should we, anyway? Why? Where would they live, with which species would they compete?).
Why not spend the effort in actual species currently at risk instead of what seems like a vanity project or publicity stunt?
This type of logic is pretty iffy. That's the same logic as people who say "Why go to the moon when we have poor people at home?". Except we now know that the moon program made the US and the world much richer due to innovations in tech, AND we also know that the US politicians wouldn't have put that money to the poor if it didn't go to Apollo AND we also know that fixing poverty is actually harder than going to the moon AND we have to accept people solving problems without complaining about other problems that might or might not be worse.
Solving problems is a GOOD THING. It doesn't matter if there are worse problems. Complain about people making shit worse.
This isn't resurrecting extinct species or truly helping those at risk (both misleading claims made by the company involved), since it doesn't address the root causes.
Solving problems is not always a good thing if they aren't the right problems, or if it's more of a publicity stunt. Especially when the topic is resource-constrained.
At this point, I'm just repeating that the article makes a valid point. I think otherwise, and so I disagree with you on this point.
Let me stress, once again, this isn't about "not playing god" -- not yours, but the sibling commenter's remark about Nautilus -- which I'm in full agreement it'd be a silly thing to claim (and which the article doesn't, as far as I can tell). It does seem technological hubris though, and it doesn't really seem about "trying to do good".