Comments on: Will we ever clone a mammoth?

By: Chuck

Chuck — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 23:24:00 +0000

Those that say that mammoths went extinct due to climate change are forgetting the fact that humans may have played the biggest role in the demise of mammoths. If we had not been around, there are a number of species that would still be here today. Cloning a mammoth helps endangered species as well in that it gives us the experience and technology to save species in the case of future extinctions.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 17:16:39 +0000

It is not necessarily an environmental situation. While extinction of these creatures occured many years ago, the issues might be varied. One such cause might have been a meteor which wiped out a large quantity of these animals or extinction due to animals feeding on each other …. The habitat might be recreated for such animals, in a similar manner to what we do to panda’s and dolphins when reproduced in captivity.

Some hours ago some new discoveries regarding mammoths were made which made me re-lookup the topic. The cloning of this animal is closer to reality than we might think Maybe who knows some day dinosaurs …. and in principle we could use this technology to recreate … all the poor mammals that were extincted by human greed.

By: Vladimir Dinets

Vladimir Dinets — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 19:16:32 +0000

Shouldn’t it be Asian elephant, not African?
Anyway, it’s important to remember that resurrecting the mammoth is more than a publicity stunt. It could have tremendous conservation value. The mammoth was a keystone species; its extinction possibly caused an ecosystem collapse over much of the Northern hemisphere. Bringing it back would potentially allow us to recreate Arctic steppes over huge territories, replacing Boreal forests which are so unproductive and unstable (prone to catastrophic fires, pest outbreaks, etc.)

By: mo

mo — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 13:36:29 +0000

How’s Hwang still allowed to do anything?
Who funds him?

By: John R Hutchinson

John R Hutchinson — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 14:40:10 +0000

Good point by Paul about the environment. The mammoth steppe ecosystem is, depending on how one defines it, extinct or nearly so, although attempts have been made to revive it–

http://www.pleistocenepark.ru/en/

or at least understand why it collapsed–
http://mammothsteppe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=3

“Cloning an extinct ecosystem”– not easy.

Engendering resistance to modern pathogens, especially strains of salmonella, tuberculosis and herpes that can decimate extant elephants would be another challenge. We have a hard enough time maintaining sustained captive elephant populations due to such problems!

And there is the ethical problem– is the animal cruelty involved (suffering of any hopeless monsters produced) enough to justify risky experiments like this (let alone the Chickensaurus)?

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 13:35:45 +0000

No species is stable over the long term without the environment to which it is adapted. It will either go extinct again, or change to adapt to the altered environment. If we want to preserve species, we need to preserve the environments in which they live.