• Question: Do you think we should clone near extinct animals to create more or not?

    Asked by CLOSESHAVE to Anthea, Chloe, Kevin, Michel, Sean on 14 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Chloe Kinsella

      Chloe Kinsella answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      I think it is really interesting to collect DNA from each species on the planet and to have this information, but I am unsure if we should use DNA to clone these animals. If we clone two animals this does not mean that the species will not become extinct again. They have to successfully reproduce and reenter back into their habitat. We have to look at the issues that made the species go extinct in the first place (like habitat loss or hunting) and consider if simply placing de-extinct animals back into their old habitat would work.

      Current cloning techniques have an average success rate of less than 5 percent, even when working with familiar species. Cloning wild animals is usually less than 1 percent successful. To clone an animal, a female is usually implanted with the cloned egg and becomes the mother. This would not be possible with extinct animals, unless the egg could somehow be carried by a different species.

      It’s an interesting questions and I think people will have different views on it. For me, its quite unnatural and I worry abut the potential for things to go wrong

    • Photo: Anthea Lacchia

      Anthea Lacchia answered on 15 Nov 2014:

      Well that’s a really interesting and tough question! I personally think that, even though conservation of endagered animals is hugely important, it would not be a good idea to clone animals to prevent extinction, as sad as it is to see species go. Over Earth’s long history- it is 4.567 Billion years old!!- perhaps 99.99% of all species that ever existed are now gone. Humans are different because in no previous pulse of mass extinction did a single species (US!) consciously drive a number of other species extinct. That’s why modifying our behaviour, as humans, through conservation, it so important.
      Just as an aside, people are now thinking a lot about the possibility of bringing extinct species back to life. This may be a wacky idea but it’s actually within scientific possibility! Thanks to new developments in genetics, DNA may eventually bring the animals back to life. Sadly (or not depending on what you think!) this can’t be done for species whose DNA is too old to be recovered, such as dinosaurs. So no chance of Jurassic Park scenarios!

      Here’s a good article if you want to find out more:
      http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130310-extinct-species-cloning-deextinction-genetics-science/

    • Photo: Sean Kelly

      Sean Kelly answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      Good questions! Excellent answers from Chloe and Anthea below, covering all the major ethical issues and scientific difficulties of this idea. I’d just like to add another. People are talking about this as if we’re close to being able to do this – we’re really not! Also, we’re losing species on Earth at a fast rate. If we can’t conserve the species we currently have on Earth, how can we think it’s a good idea to bring back those already extinct? If we ever could bring back extinct species, we’d need to make sure humans and the world are absolutely ready!

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