There is a herd of mammoths—the stuff of legend—playing in a wild pond. Their long hair waves in the wind, the sunlight gleams on their long, curved tusks as they spray each other with water.
It’s the year 2030. After a 12,000 year long period of extinction, there is a herd miraculously walking about in the wild. This herd has been genetically resurrected from their permafrost graves. Using frozen mammoth remains, scientists have recovered their DNA sequencing, synthesized new DNA, implanted it into an oocyte, and impregnated a modern elephant to carry these new cloned mammoths to term.
Sound outrageous? Maybe it’s not quite as outrageous as it sounded in 1990 when Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park, a story of similar cloning endeavors. In the May 2009 issue of National Geographic, Tom Mueller’s article “Recipe for a Resurrection” presents the possibility of cloning these long extinct creatures as more real than it is unreal. In fact, it’s no longer a question of “Can we do it?” so much as it is a question of “Who is going to put the funding and manpower into this project?”
After the November 2008 announcement that mice had been cloned from specimen that had been frozen for 16 years, speculation began to arise over the possibility of raising extinct animals from their frozen graves, no matter how long ago. There are research facilities with these “frozen zoos” in the San Diego Zoo and the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans. This makes cloning a distinct possibility for any extinct species whose remains have been frozen, either in permafrost or more artificially in liquid nitrogen.
Mueller, however, poses this question: How ethical is cloning extinct or endangered species? Cloning one mammoth creates a freak more than a species. Kept in a zoo or artificially created environment, a mammoth fits into no more natural ecological niches. Even if we created a herd, its reintroduction could possibly distort any natural ecological system it is inserted into. In addition, part of the process of creating the mammoth would entail the surrogate mother of a related species. After the mammoth embryo is artificially created, it would be inserted into the surrogate mother of an animal with a similar gestational period and process as the mammoth (the closest living relative). In this case, the closest living relative is an Asian elephant. Asian elephants are themselves an endangered species, and trying to use them for this already ethically questionable project puts into further danger a species already teetering on the edge of existence.
Henry Nicholls’ article in Nature, “Darwin 200: Let’s Make a Mammoth” was the article that evoked a lot of discussion on this topic. In this article, he explains the steps scientists would have to take to bring this creature from its frozen grave. While in many respects, the article is introducing the ethical question of cloning extinct or endangered species, it is also part of the solution.
While cloning the mammoth might be wrought with many ethical questions, cloning endangered, extinct in the wild, or recently extinct creatures has far fewer questions. In Pina-Aguilar’s “Revival of Extinct Species Using Nuclear Transfer: Hope for the Mammoth, True for the Pyrenean Ibex, But Is It Time for ‘Conservation Cloning?’”, it is suggested that we can use the very steps that Nicholls has presented as a method of conserving species that still have ecological niches, and are only endangered, or that became extinct only recently.
For example, Pina-Aguilar suggests that we attempt to clone the Mexican Gray Wolf using Nicholls’ approach, which is extinct in the wild in Mexico. Its species still exists today in captivity, and we also have frozen DNA. The advantage to this is that surrogate mothers can be easily pulled, not from this endangered species, but from the generic gray wolf, a close relative which is not endangered. Once there are enough, the Mexican Gray Wolf can easily be reintroduced into their natural habitats in the wild of Mexico and southwestern America.
Cloning using frozen DNA contributes to the larger question of conservation of species that we are facing. According to the IUCN List of Endangered Species, nearly one in four species of mammals are endangered. We can use this advancement in cloning not to create mammoth curios to be kept in zoos and artificial habitats, but to protect our current living earth from further destruction at man’s hands. This represents a very practical and environment-saving use for these advancements in cloning.
--Eliza Meeks
Bibliography:
“Recipe for a Resurrection.” Mueller, Tom. National Geographic, May 2009, Vol. 215, Issue 5.
“Revival of Extinct Species Using Nuclear Transfer: Hope for the Mammoth, True for the Pyrenean Ibex, but is it Time for ‘Conservation Cloning’?” Pina-Aguilar, Raul E.; Lopez-Saucedo, Janet; Sheffield, Richard; Ruix-Galas, Lilia I.; J. Barroso-Padilla, Jose de; Gutierrez/Gutierrez, Antonio. Cloning and Stem Cells, 2009, Vol. 11, Number 3.
“Darwin 200: Let’s Make a Mammoth.” Nicholls, Henry. Nature, 20 November 2008, Vol. 456.
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