A Working Safety Net (Finally)
Let’s be honest: the fight to save endangered species hasn’t exactly been going well. We throw money at it, we do awareness campaigns, we set up conservation zones—and yet, it always feels like we’re losing ground. The white rhino, the vaquita, the pangolin... it’s a depressing list.
But this? This feels like the first time someone brought a safety net to the tightrope act. Yes, it’s wild that we can bring back something that’s been extinct for 10,000 years, but imagine what this could mean for the animals that are almost gone. The ones hanging on by a whisker and a prayer. The ones that we already have the DNA for.
We don’t want to lose them. Ideally, we never get to that point. But if we do—if we lose the very last one—it’s starting to look like all might not be lost. And that’s kind of amazing.
But… Should We?
Here’s where it gets tricky. Because while everyone can agree that we don’t want to see the white rhino go extinct (especially since we’re the reason they’re disappearing in the first place), what about species that disappeared long before we showed up?
Take the dire wolf, for example. We didn’t kill them off. Nature did. Evolution did. The dire wolf had its time. It roamed, it howled, it did dire wolf things, and then it went extinct—probably because it couldn’t adapt fast enough. That’s just how nature works. Over 99.9% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct. That’s not a human thing, that’s an Earth thing.
So what gives us the right to pluck one species’ DNA out of the fossil record and bring it back? And why this species and not another? What about the dodo? The Tasmanian tiger? The megalodon? (Okay, scratch that last one, no thanks.)
And What Happens When We Drop Them Back Into the Wild?
Let’s say we bring back the dire wolf. Great. Now what? Do we release them into Yellowstone and hope for the best? Do they get along with modern wolves? Do they eat the same things? What happens to the balance of the ecosystem if we introduce a predator that hasn’t walked the Earth in millennia?
We like to think we’re playing Noah here, saving animals two by two. But sometimes it feels more like we’re playing a blindfolded God. Just because we can bring them back doesn’t necessarily mean we should—at least not without understanding the full consequences. Ok, so we don't release them back to the wild - we just keep them in a zoo - Well, then, why even bring them back in the first place? To spend their lives behind bars? This is kind of a lose-lose situation.
So… Is It a Good Thing?
Honestly? I don’t know.
I'm pretty sure I don't want to visit a “De-Extinction Zoo” where animals look at me with a “You should have left us dead” eyes.
On the other hand, I’m excited. I’m impressed. I’m cautiously optimistic. I love that we’re living in a time where science can do stuff that was literally science fiction ten years ago. But I also think we need to be very, very careful with this power.
De-extinction might be the coolest backup plan ever created—but it’s still just a backup plan. We still need to fight to protect the animals that are here now. We still need to stop destroying habitats, stop poaching, stop pretending climate change isn’t a thing. This technology doesn’t give us permission to get lazy. It just means we might have one more tool in the toolbox.
And if that means Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi get to run around a forest someday—cool. I just hope we’ve thought it through first.
