De-Extinction: A Second Chance for Earth’s Ecosystems

The 1993 film Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg and grossing millions, explores the worst-case scenario that occurs when extinct dinosaurs are brought back to life using prehistoric DNA. Although such an ecological crisis appears to be nothing more than an added element of horror in the science fiction genre, recent developments in cloning, back breeding, and genome editing are making de-extinction a reality. While initial experiments have seen limited success, reviving exterminated species could greatly benefit our planet. As with all technologies, care must be taken to prevent de-extinction’s use at large scales or in the wrong hands, but the policy implementation is a small price to pay in exchange for a healthier environment, and in turn, a healthier planet and society.

In today’s world of rapid ecosystemic degradation, a continual decline in biodiversity poses significant deleterious effects directly and indirectly to humanity. Studies reveal a correlation between environmental destruction and zoonotic disease transmission to humans: when organisms are displaced from their habitats by people, the risk of “spillover” increases to the point where another pandemic is likely to occur in the next decade. Loss of variation in both plant and animal species disrupts many communities’ ways of life, disproportionately affecting smaller or more rural areas. At climate change’s current rate of progression, extreme heat and degradation of nature will render highly-populated, tropical parts of Earth unable to support human life.

Now, a highly effective tool exists to combat this issue: extinct animals now play a surprisingly relevant role in restoring ecosystemic balance. For instance, rewilding wolves as the apex predators into Yellowstone National Park reaffirmed ecosystemic balance, and a similar project, with the goal of re-introducting thylacines to the Tasmanian wilderness, is underway across universities in Australia. After this last local apex predator went extinct on the island in 1936, populations of small mammals such as cats, rabbits, and foxes have skyrocketed, devastating the ecosystem. The same technology can help conserve existing endangered organisms by both re-introducing animals into the environment and artificially enhancing their natural selectivity and ability to thrive in a shifting ecological balance. This is done by boosting immunity against diseases, lending the ability to consume new food sources in order to survive. De-extinction can even prevent harmful inbreeding by removing deleterious mutations that occur when a shrinking population continues reproducing with little genetic flow into the gene pool. Applicable instances include the case of Australia’s northern quoll, whose population has been severely reduced by venomous toads.

Some have even argued that when tissue is frozen in order to be used in such conservation efforts, a species is not truly extinct, and following this logic, cryopreserving the biological matter of currently-living organisms ensures a more secure and biodiverse future – this is the same way that the Pyrenean ibex was functionally brought back to life, albeit only for several minutes. Since the establishment of the first “genomic libraries” at the San Diego Zoo in 1975, international zoos, museums, organizations, and universities have collaborated to form numerous other tissue banks, most notably the Frozen Ark, containing samples from over five thousand unique species.

Despite the plethora of benefits the technology offers, de-extinction is a highly nuanced tool with several key limitations. The term itself is controversial, as it is technically impossible to revive a creature with the exact same genetic makeup. Rather, de-extinction focuses on creating extremely similar proxies that serve the same purpose in the same ecosystemic niche. Additionally, no species has yet been “revived”; the closest example occurred with the birth of a Pyrenean ibex in 2003 created with cloning from preserved tissue. However, the goat had extreme physical defects in its lungs and only survived for less than ten minutes, becoming the first species to become extinct twice. Despite these challenges, molecular and gene editing techniques such as the CRISPR Cas9 system have advanced enormously over the last 23 years, making a more successful future result not only optimistic, but feasible.

De-extinction offers a way to combat climate change by using technology that has become exponentially more precise since the very first attempt at cloning-based de-extinction in 2003. What started with Jurassic Park is no longer just a cautionary tale about reviving extinct species. With continued investment in the field, the creation of ecosystemic proxies can rise from a faraway science fiction concept to a groundbreaking and efficient method to promote environmental conservation. De-extinction is a viable tool to not only create a more diverse and richer planet of life, but also to support the long-term survival of humanity along the way.