Should We Resurrect the Woolly Mammoth?
Almost every species that ever existed is extinct. From the sabretooth tiger to diplodocus, life seems forever destined to go the way of the dodo. In fact, in the time it will take you to read this article, a species will go extinct somewhere in the world.
That’s equivalent to 100,000 species going extinct every year.
And that rate is speeding up.
More than one in four species on Earth now faces extinction, rising to half by the end of the century unless we take urgent action.
It’s called the Sixth Mass Extinction — and it’s threatening life as we know it.
Part of the problem is that once a species is gone, it’s gone forever. As Carl Sagan aptly said, “Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.”
Nature doesn’t do resurrection.
But what if it did. What if we were to bring an antique species back from the past. That’s the bold new plan proposed by software entrepreneur Ben Lamm and Harvard geneticist George Church.
A Project of Mammoth Proportions
In September 2021, they formed a new company, Colossal, whose sole aim is to use cutting-edge CRISPR gene-editing technology to tweak the DNA of an Asian elephant — the closest living relative of the woolly mammoth — to be more mammoth-like.
The plan is simple — extract a certain portion of the mammoth genome — the parts responsible for their shaggy coat, small ears, and extra fatty tissue — and insert them into an Asian elephant stem cell.
Using this stem cell, Lamm and Church hope to create an egg. This elephant-mammoth hybrid egg will either be implanted in a surrogate Asian elephant or an artificial womb — it’s all very Jurassic Park.
Behind the scientific question of can we do it, is the deeper conundrum that shadows all technological advancements:
Should we do it?
The Rule of Cool
Proponents of the cult of progress argue we should do it because we can do it. As Oxford educator Jonny Thomson puts it: “Progress and discovery are worthy on their own terms.”
To put it crudely: mammoths are cool.
But that’s a rather circular argument — and not one we’d normally accept. Few would tolerate designer babies selected for skin colour or other immutable characteristics. Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui faced torrential criticism when he announced using CRISPR to genetically edit two twins to be HIV-resistant.
That’s without mentioning the animal welfare concerns about putting a genetically foreign “novel” species into an Asian Elephant.
As scientists themselves protest, science is amoral. It is we who decide right from wrong.
Still, there’s some merit to the argument. Achieving a mammoth resurrection — of a kind — would be a monumental achievement — likely to teach valuable lessons for gene-editing. Though in its infancy, CRISPR already holds the promise of curing diseases like muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, and even cancer.
Perhaps a little tweaking of elephant genes might help us solve the mammoth problem of incurable illnesses.
The Mammoth in the Room
There’s also the ecological argument.
Deep in the heart of Siberia, Pleistocene Park is a nature reserve attempting to recreate the mammoth steppe: a lost ecosystem that once spread from Spain to Canada. Yakutian horses, saigas, muskox, Altai wapitis, and wisents were released into the experimental rewilding project.
There’s just one notable absence: the mammoths themselves.
Without these colossal herbivores, can the team at Pleistocene Park ever hope to rejuvenate the ecosystem, much less restore it to its former glory?
And that’s without mentioning the woolly rhinoceros, cave lions, and all manner of species that went extinct when early humans first strolled onto the scene.
Aren’t we just fixing our past mistakes?
What even is natural?
To restore or rewild — that’s the question facing ecologists in the 21st century. When repairing damaged ecosystems, should we recreate a past epoch: and if so, when? Before humans came along? Before agriculture? Before the industrial revolution?
As I pointed out in The Last Remaining Wilds of Planet Earth — what we think of as wild is often the overgrown remains of lost native cultures.
Or should we rewild to create novel ecosystems without historical precedent? After all, is it right to try to leave an ecosystem without keystone species just because they weren’t found naturally?
Somewhere in the midst of this debate is the problem of mammoth resurrection
The proposed hybrid isn’t a real mammoth — but does that really matter? To paraphrase an old saying, if it looks like a mammoth and walks like a mammoth: it’s probably a mammoth.
If this species’ resurrection — and others like it — can restore ecosystem functioning to a damaged landscape, isn’t it worth it? Is ecological health greater than natural purity?
Who knows the answer?
Meddlesome though we are, there is another option: the George Carlin argument. Named after the late great comedian, it’s an idea unrecognisable to scientists more used to prodding and poking.
To quote the man himself:
“Let me tell you about endangered species, all right? Saving endangered species is just one more arrogant attempt by humans to control nature. It’s arrogant meddling; it’s what got us in trouble in the first place. Doesn’t anybody understand that? … Let them go gracefully. Leave nature alone. Haven’t we done enough?”
Maybe George has got a point.
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