Dire Wolf “de-extinction” and investing in the planet
It isn’t that they can’t see the solution.
It’s that they can’t see the problem.
~ G. K. Chesterton
There’s an article in the latest New Yorker about the genetics start-up Colossal and their “de-extinction” of the Dire Wolf. They’ve set their sights on resurrecting the dodo, the wooly mammoth and the thylacine as well. Actually, none of these are the resurrection of the named species, they are partial facsimiles—mutated versions of existing genomes that create animals with traits resembling extinct species. The resurrected Dire Wolf is really just a grey wolf with 20 edits in 15 genes that modify traits like coat color, skull development and vocalization. Since we know nothing about Dire Wolf behavior, there’s no way of knowing what adaptive behavioral traits may have distinguished the historical Dire Wolf.
Look, I’m a molecular geneticist. Genome editing technology is the tool we dreamed of, and I’ve published my views on the topic of genome editing in humans, agriculture and pest species. The problem with the Colossal project, as I see it, is that the hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on a technical tour-de-force while the planet burns. The so-called “de-extinction” fills a much-needed gap. Meanwhile, real species are going extinct at a rapid and growing rate due to human activity. Before we invest in reviving extinct species, let’s invest in preventing extinctions in the first place.
Megafauna like the Dire Wolf and the wooly mammoth capture the public imagination. If you watched Game of Thrones, you know how telegenic a Dire Wolf can be (albeit the size of the GoT Dire Wolf was greatly exaggerated). Much of the life threatened with extinction today isn’t sexy—invertebrates, birds, wild plants. But in terms of the consequential biomass on the planet, they have more impact than a few thousand fake Dire Wolves, wooly mammoths, dodos and thylacines, which may themselves go extinct if released in the wild as planned.
The CEO of Colossal makes the point that the investors in this project weren’t choosing between de-extinction and extinction prevention. They would likely have invested in some unrelated project. He’s probably right. But it isn’t that Colossal can’t see the solution, it’s that they can’t see the problem.
It’s that they can’t see the problem.
~ G. K. Chesterton
There’s an article in the latest New Yorker about the genetics start-up Colossal and their “de-extinction” of the Dire Wolf. They’ve set their sights on resurrecting the dodo, the wooly mammoth and the thylacine as well. Actually, none of these are the resurrection of the named species, they are partial facsimiles—mutated versions of existing genomes that create animals with traits resembling extinct species. The resurrected Dire Wolf is really just a grey wolf with 20 edits in 15 genes that modify traits like coat color, skull development and vocalization. Since we know nothing about Dire Wolf behavior, there’s no way of knowing what adaptive behavioral traits may have distinguished the historical Dire Wolf.
Look, I’m a molecular geneticist. Genome editing technology is the tool we dreamed of, and I’ve published my views on the topic of genome editing in humans, agriculture and pest species. The problem with the Colossal project, as I see it, is that the hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on a technical tour-de-force while the planet burns. The so-called “de-extinction” fills a much-needed gap. Meanwhile, real species are going extinct at a rapid and growing rate due to human activity. Before we invest in reviving extinct species, let’s invest in preventing extinctions in the first place.
Megafauna like the Dire Wolf and the wooly mammoth capture the public imagination. If you watched Game of Thrones, you know how telegenic a Dire Wolf can be (albeit the size of the GoT Dire Wolf was greatly exaggerated). Much of the life threatened with extinction today isn’t sexy—invertebrates, birds, wild plants. But in terms of the consequential biomass on the planet, they have more impact than a few thousand fake Dire Wolves, wooly mammoths, dodos and thylacines, which may themselves go extinct if released in the wild as planned.
The CEO of Colossal makes the point that the investors in this project weren’t choosing between de-extinction and extinction prevention. They would likely have invested in some unrelated project. He’s probably right. But it isn’t that Colossal can’t see the solution, it’s that they can’t see the problem.
There’s an old saying that at least half of all research winds up at a dead end, but it’s impossible to know which half. I agree that this research has little to do with fighting extinction, but being able to reintroduce ancient genes into modern animals may become extremely important as our climate changes. Yes, it would be real nice to stop the climate from changing, but that ship has sailed. Maybe we can avoid the worst case scenarios, but otherwise we’re stuck.
This dire wolf thing may have just been a bit of showmanship, but we’ve bred a lot of potentially useful genes out of the animals we farm. I’m a big fan of heritage breeds, but even they have a limited gene pool. If we can use historical genes to deal with modern or revived diseases and changes in climate, so much the better. There are genetic problems with wild populations as extinction introduce bottlenecks. There are all sorts of possibilities, not all of them good or likely, but all worth thinking about which is different from considering. For example, introducing genes into corals to make them more tolerant of warm water or into pollinators to make them more resistant to insecticides.
P.S. Have you ever visited Wolfhaven south of Seattle? It’s a wolf rescue center for wolves raised in homes or found injured in the wild. We learned a great deal, saw some gorgeous wolves and got to listen to a group howl.
@Kaleberg,
I’m fine with genome editing for crop and livestock improvement, as well as for creating gene drives to drive pest species like Anopheles to extinction. That’s not what de-extinction is remotely about. The claim on behalf of de-extinction is that it has had spin-offs in terms of IVF and artificial wombs, but those could have been pursued anyway for their own sake.