Ten years ago, I invited a bunch of clever biologists to my home to discuss the possibility of one day reversing the extinction of a bird called the Great Auk. We did not claim it could yet be done but we knew that the two technologies for doing de-extinction – ancient genome sequencing and Crispr gene editing — were progressing fast, and we thought it useful to debate the issue in advance.
It was a fascinating meeting not least because Professor Tom Gilbert arrived from Copenhagen with the news that he had just completed the reading of a complete Great Auk genome, a feat we thought was still some way off. We ended the meeting with a trip out to the Farne islands where we watched a breeding colony of Razorbills, the Great Auk’s closest living relative, and the species whose genome could perhaps one day be “edited” back to that of a Great Auk.
Now, this month, Colossal Biosciences has announced the de-extinction of the Dire Wolf, a species of large, white wolf that went extinct some thousands of years ago. There was an annoying degree of hype in the announcement, in my view, since they had not created real Dire Wolves but ordinary Grey Wolves with a handful of genes altered to their equivalents in Dire Wolves. But leave that debate on one side because the real significance of the news is that it shows that it will almost certainly be possible to truly reverse the extinction of some species within the next decade or two.
The usual glass-half-empty suspects say this is a bad idea. They say that there is no place for these species; they went extinct for a reason and the ecosystem, trashed by mankind, can no longer support them. They say that de-extinction will waste resources better spent on saving rare species that still survive. Or worse, that it will lead human beings to argue that extinction does not matter because it can be reversed. They say de-extinguished individuals will lead sad lives in zoos.
While we must proceed with caution, I think all these arguments will prove to be wrong. Take the Great Auk. It went extinct in around 1844, when the last one was killed on an island off Iceland, as recounted in my friend Tim Birkhead’s fine new book on the Great Auk. It is the only species of bird breeding in Europe to have gone extinct in 500 years, incidentally – contrary to the general impression environmentalists like to give that extinctions are happening all the time.
But Great Auks did not go extinct because the North Atlantic was no longer a suitable place for them to thrive, but because we human beings slaughtered them in large numbers to stuff their feathers into pillows. If you brought them back today that need not happen – there is little economic demand for feathers and the bird could be legally protected anyway.
Would it fit back into the ocean ecosystem? Yes. Some seabird colonies in the North Atlantic are doing poorly but many are doing well. The Farne islands, on whose advisory committee I sit, and where Great Auks lived until the 1700s, now have more auks breeding on them than at any time in my lifetime and probably more than for several centuries: 40,000 pairs of Puffins, 30,000 pairs of Guillemots, 400 pairs of Razorbills. Great Auks would find plenty to eat in the North Atlantic and might prove to be a useful part of the ecological jigsaw if it turns out, say, that they specialise on eating a species of fish that eats other fish.
Likewise, reintroducing Mammoths to parts of Siberia might have a big impact on the ecosystem if they promote productive natural grasslands at the expense of the low-productivity spruce taiga that expanded after the Mammoth’s extinction. Passenger Pigeons were keynote species in North American woodlands, Dodos on Mauritius and Thylacines in Australia. Getting them back will be an ecological restoration project, not just a vanity project.
As for wasting resources, Colossal Biosciences and Revive and Restore, its non-profit equivalent (to which I am an advisor), will support all sorts of other conservation efforts with the money they raise. It is highly unlikely that the dedicated conservationists who are trying to save the last 100 Great Indian Bustards from being driven extinct (by wind farms, solar farms and their associated power lines, by the way) will suddenly say “let’s not bother because we can always de-extinguish the species later”.
This month’s semi-Dire Wolves will be followed by some semi-Passenger Pigeons soon, I understand, and maybe a semi-Mammoth after that. For me the real excitement of de-extinction is the demonstration of just how powerful gene editing has now become: the agricultural and medical applications of the technology are mind boggling and far more important for human flourishing.
In the decade since the Crispr tool was invented for precisely cutting a genome at specific spots, and then altering it during the repair, we have seen it used for improving the yield, nutritional quality and disease resistance of many crops. That will further accelerate the reduction in the amount of land needed to feed human beings. Already, despite the growing population, we have passed “peak land” and can set aside more and more land for wildlife as well as golf courses.
As for the medical opportunities, it is now in principle possible to cure almost any genetic, inherited disease though it will be some time before we can be sure of doing so safely in every case. It is more and more possible to design and insert highly specific drugs to kill cancers, and vaccines to kill viruses. Compared with many other technical advances, including AI, I think gene editing will prove to be even more spectacularly beneficial for humankind in the long run.