When I look at the picture above, I get angry. How wonderful it would be if this creature, the moa, the dodo, the passenger pigeon, etc, etc, etc, were still here on earth. These creatures did not die out by natural selection, they died out because of human fear, greed, ignorance, and agression.

I think it will turn out that our ancestors set the stage for DNA retention for future generations, without precise knowledge of what they were doing, just knowing that there was something in their ancestors worth trying to keep intact. As it turns out, they’ve provided us with one of the more useful tools for studying ourselves: our past. DNA snapshots backing up the human genome at various points in time, whether by mummification (if anything is recoverable from that) or accidental bog and ice mummies.

Think about this: we can study humans from before, during and after plagues, if DNA is available, and can gain insights into how our immune systems deal with invaders, and use that information to combat the plagues of today.

Re: Chandler brown – they didn’t have much in the way of conservation at the time. The government was paying people to eradicate them, pretty hard to fight that.

Re: Catherine T – we need to start studying higher-order mammal extinction so we can keep an eye out for the same thing happening in the human race, even if we may not be able to do anything about it. It’s inevitable that catastrophe will happen, and the more we know about how that went down in the past the better we’re able to cope with it in the present.