Bringing back extinct animals: a progress report

What do people think about this subject? Is the pursuit of bringing back the passenger pigeon a waste of time and money or is it worthwhile?
 
DavidBrown said:
What do people think about this subject? Is the pursuit of bringing back the passenger pigeon a waste of time and money or is it worthwhile?
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If someone has or can raise the money then it's theirs to "waste", good luck to them.

Is it wise to include or mention Flim Flammery in any project at the present? He's could be it's "kiss of death". Mike Archer has the credibility & has been a longstanding supporter of these concepts, & IMO would be able to popularise the idea much better. In this part of the world anyway.

Cheers Khakibob
 
DavidBrown said:
What do people think about this subject? Is the pursuit of bringing back the passenger pigeon a waste of time and money or is it worthwhile?
Click to expand...

How can one bring back Passenger Pigeons unless one can bring back the beech forests?
Or shall we recreate an extinct species specifically to see it in a zoo?
Then has it been "brought back" or is it a virtual life form?
 
I wonder why you would bring back some thing mankind killed off -very recently in most cases,- Passenger pigeon, Thylacine, etc. When we struggle keep alive some of our most threatened yet still living species, Javan and Sumatran Rhino, Northern White Rhino, the list goes on and on.
When we have secured the living lets look at the dead would be my view. The only reason I can see for doing it would be either financial gain from the publicity or bravado.
 
Bring em back. Why wait to develop the technology until we lose the current CR species. Until the twin problems of habitat destruction and unregulated hunting/poaching are resolved....let's have some hope for a better future. Anything that made it into the Holocene that we can recover, we should. Even if its just a clever copy, a cold-weather adapted Asian Elephant population might be a real boon towards education funding and land preservation/restoration.
 
I agree we should focus on the extant species before we even consider bring back the extinct. As this technology develops I think it will be imperative to build a strong, diverse genetic bank of information for still living species so in the future we can assist in saving future critically endangered species from the brink of extinction. It could also be used to bring back species alive today that will become extinct by the time this technology is perfected. I wonder if there is enough genetic information for those extinct species to properly bring them back? I think Zoo's of the future should/will play an important role in the collection and stockpiling of this genetic data. Of course Zooplantman's point about the importance of suitable habitat is a great one, and would need to be addressed before we think about bringing them back.

My fear is that unless the technology is used for headline-making news like bringing back mammoths that adequate funding for developing the technology won't be there.
 
Zooplantman said:
Then has it been "brought back" or is it a virtual life form?
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Very well put. I think this is particularly apt in the case of the thylacine. 90% of what's believed to have been their prime habitat is gone, and so little is known about them. It'd be hard to imagine how a re-introduction could be managed.
 
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