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Say they succeed. Next they'll be digging dinosaurs out of the ice and trying to bring them back. Looks like all this would be a good way to awaken an ancient and deadly virus.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by marino760
Woolly mammoths were still on earth as recently as 4-6 thousand years ago,
That is still plenty of time for bacteria and viruses to have evolved significantly. Our current experience with Covid 19 constantly evolving to the point where earlier vaccines produced 2 or 3 years ago are useless against some current strains of Covid 19 viruses prove that.
I've never had enough interest in Woolly Mammoths to find out when or why they went extinct, but I do appreciate that you corrected me.
I'm all for mankind fixing its mistakes. If man caused a creature to become extinct and has the technology to bring it back, then that's what should happen, IMO. I see nothing morally wrong with it, but just the opposite. It would be morally wrong not to bring them back since if not for the stupidity of people, they would still be here.
The trouble is that the woolly mammoth's predators, likely the dire wolf, are not being brought back contemporaneously. Man is the keystone species but we should be careful about, willy-nilly, fixing "mistakes."
Say they succeed. Next they'll be digging dinosaurs out of the ice and trying to bring them back. Looks like all this would be a good way to awaken an ancient and deadly virus.
Interestingly, as the Siberian permafrost melts, it is releasing ancient microbes. It's quite possible that one of them will be deadly to modern humans.
But them's the breaks. We're always getting exposed to new mutations of a virus or bacteria; it's just one of the risks of being alive.
I'm not sure that fear of a virus plague is a good reason to not revive the mammoths. It would be of great scientific value to revive them, not to mention that their effects on the frozen northlands of Canada and Siberia would likely be beneficial, as the article points out. It's quite likely and possible that their absence has been detrimental to the world.
We ought to revive the passenger pigeon, which went extinct a mere 110 years ago but was native to North America. People tend to forget that birds eat ticks and other insects, birds fertilize meadows, and birds are a source of prey as well.
Loss of biodiversity is a bad thing and we should try to restore as many species as possible before we have ruined the planet entirely.
" the company may explore other options based on the current political framework of the world." what is that supposed to mean .. what humans are they looking at resurrecting ?
You left out the part about bringing the mammoth to Siberia. They're probably referring to the status of Russia's leader as persona non grata pretty much worldwide.
The article says the mammoth's migration pattern would be beneficial to far northern regions. How so?
I don't think their reintroduction is a good idea. Perhaps its saving grace could be that the presence of these animals would retard humans' inclination to despoil arctic regions, one way or another.
Bad idea. The biome that the mammoth is adapted for, the mammoth steppe, no longer exists. Mammoths would have no place to be.
The African and Asian elephants still exist. If the mammoth steppe reappears on Earth, there's a chance that existing elephants can migrate into the region and undergo adaptations to look more like mammoths.
I believe the mammoth steppe will eventually reappear, so humans probably don't need to do anything for a mammoth-like creature to walk the Earth again.
It's hard enough for currently living elephants to survive in an increasingly crowded world, and they want to bring back the wooly mammoth? Where are they going to put them? What sort of life will they have? They'll be relegated to zoos or sanctuaries, there will probably never be enough of them to rekindle a population unless they just hybridize with existing elephants. I don't see the reason to do it; it's not fair to revive a creature from a time so long gone just to say we could.
This will be awesome if successful. Imagine seeing a live animal that we've only read about and seen bones of.
Only problem will be the social media "influencers" who will be tripping over themselves to be the first to take selfies and videos of these magnificent animals, clogging up the viewing area and inconvenience others (as they always do).
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