Ever wonder what it would be like to travel back in time 10,000 years to live alongside the majestic woolly mammoths? If so, you’re not alone in that time travel fantasy. Japanese scientists Kazufumi Goto and Akira Iritani have set out to do just that by attempting to clone the mammoth back into existence. While a team of Russian scientists, lead by Sergey Zimov, are attempting to recreate the ecosystem in which woolly mammoths and other mammals of the time lived. Pleistocene Park, named for the Pleistocene era, could potentially become home to endangered or possibly resurrected extinct mammals.
So just how do the scientists hope to resurrect the extinct mammoth? According to the November 2008 issue of New Scientist, scientists have been able to clone mice from cells from dead mice that have been frozen for 16 years. This discovery has lead scientists to conclude that it may be possible to clone the woolly mammoth if they can obtain viable DNA from a frozen mammoth specimen, if one can be recovered. And those are big if’s according to author Rachel Nowak, “Woolly mammoth carcasses would most likely have frozen and thawed several times over the aeons, which would cause far more damage to the nucleus than a one-off freezing.” Montana State University paleontologist Jack Horner is skeptical of the project as well, “…it is unclear whether or not DNA actually can survive more than a few thousand years. No one has been able to demonstrate incontrovertibly, as of yet, that they can retrieve DNA from an extinct species.” But Goto and Iritani say that no scientist has yet been able to debunk their theory that cloning the mammoth is possible.
Scientist and mammoth resurrection pioneer Kazufumi Goto, has also claimed success with using dead bull sperm to fertilize cow eggs. However, there are different challenges when considering similar experiments with frozen mammoths as Corey A. Salsberg notes, “…even if the results of Goto’s bull sperm experiments are replicable with ten-thousand-year-old mammoth sperm, the team first has to find a mammoth carcass complete with testicles and sperm, not an easy task in light of the fact that only three whole-body specimens have officially been discovered in the last one hundred years.” And others like author and mammoth enthusiast Richard Stone concur that of the few dozen mammoths ever retrieved, most were deteriorated or only partial remains.
For those fearful that cloning the woolly mammoth would result in a heard of rogue mammoths, that is highly unlikely. First a viable mammoth specimen would have to be recovered, after 10,000 years frozen in Siberian tundra that is quite a feat. Stone confirms, “If mammoth sperm successfully fertilized an elephant egg and the resulting embryo took to a surrogate mother, a half-mammoth/half-elephant (or as Stone coined the term, “mammophant”) wouldn’t be born for 600 days. A hybrid female should reach reproductive age in 10 to15 years. It could take 35 years, from start to finish.”
Another issue is that of a surrogate mother to carry the mammoth fetus. The closest relative of the mammoth is the Asian elephant. The size difference between an elephant fetus and mammoth fetus could cause distress for the surrogate mother elephant as Salsberg confirms, “The mammoth genome (or mammoth half of the genome, in the case of the hybrid), for example, will code for thicker, denser bone composition than an ordinary Asian elephant fetus’ genome would, making the fetus significantly larger and heavier than the elephant’s womb was designed to support.” Stone says that there is also the chance that the mammoth could be sterile, as is the case of the mule, a horse-donkey hybrid.
Besides the obvious challenges of discovering and retrieval of a viable mammoth specimen, many are opposed to the idea of cloning in general and others are not sure that extinct animals should be resurrected, whether or not current technology allows. In “Ethical Issues in Animal Cloning”, Autumn Fiester reports that 64% of Americans believe that animal cloning is morally wrong. The religious view cloning as “playing God” and morally reprehensible while scientists take the stance that cloning isn't playing God—it's doing what God has given human beings the mental gifts to do. Others are concerned with the moral and ethical issues, the treatment of the animals involved in the cloning experiments and how these experiments might one day affect humans. “A society that chooses to undertake such a project will be confronted with issues ranging from animal rights, to environmental concerns, to the moral and religious implications of reversing the “natural” biological process of extinction,” Salsberg writes.
National Geographic News author Stefan Lovgren writes that Pope John Paul II, Chief Rabbi of Israel Meir Law, and representatives of Sunni Islam have all condemned any cloning of any life form on the grounds that it is prohibited by Judeo-Christian and Islamic Laws and that these people view cloning a dead or extinct creature as reversal of God’s work and plans by resurrecting that which He has chosen to put to rest. Some view resurrecting the dead or extinct via cloning may suggest the coming of Armageddon. “The Holy Bible abounds with imagery of the dead rising from their graves when the end of the world approaches, and members of certain religious groups might view the resurrection of extinct creatures as the beginning of the Apocalypse,” Lovgren continues. Others view the possibility of resurrecting extinct creatures and cloning in general as unnatural. There is also the fear that cloning the mammoth would lead to the procedure being applied to clone dead pets or eventually humans.
The idea that the cloned creature would inevitably be used for research for its entire existence is a thought many are uncomfortable with. There is also the fear that if resurrecting the mammoth is possible to the point of proliferation of the species, that it would be hunted for its meat and tusks. “…if a population of mammoths is ever released into the wild, the potential use of the mammoth as a food source might instantly throw it back into extinction. Needless to say, if all goes well, the end product of a resurrection project will be a genuine woolly mammoth—tusks, taste and all—and the concern that it will be viewed, at least by some, as a woolly gold mine or a gourmet meal seems to be a legitimate one,” Lovgren writes.
A major concern with cloning is that of the health of the animals being cloned. In “Biotechnology, Ethics, and the Politics of Cloning”, Steve Best and Douglas Kellner note some of the common problems such as the survival rates of cloned animals are between 1-5% and of the survivors, many suffer defects, illness and premature death. Other issues include breeding a lack of biodiversity and the exploitation of the animals being cloned. Best and Kellner provide the following account from Dr. Tanja Dominko who “fled in horror from her Oregon laboratory telling cautionary tales of the ‘gallery of horrors’…. 300 attempts at cloning monkeys produced nothing but freakishly abnormal embryos. A ‘successful’ clone like Dolly [a sheep clone born in 1996] (who had to eventually be euthanized because of health problems) is the exception, not the rule.” These issues have led the U.S. Humane Society (HSUS) to request a ban on products coming from cloned animals or their offspring.
So what if this mammoth resurrection is possible? Where and how would the mammoth live? The natural habitat of the mammoth is no longer available, aside from attempts to create the Pleistocene Park. How would the modern environment and ecosystem fare with the introduction of a now foreign species? How would other species adapt to this new, alien creator or how would the mammoth adjust for that matter? Even now, when species migrate or are introduced into foreign environments, it can wreak havoc on the resident species and environment, by introducing new bacteria and viruses as well as a myriad of other problems.
While some scientists believe that climate change pushed the mammoths to extinction, others like Pleistocene Park creator Zimov believe that mammoths were hunted to extinction. This reasoning leads some to the conclusion that because humans were possibly responsible for the mammoths’ demise, that perhaps humans should be responsible for resurrecting them and creating a habitat for them. From a report published in Science Direct, “Pleistocene re-wilders justify this conservation strategy on ethical and aesthetic grounds, arguing that humans have a moral responsibility to make amends for overexploitation by our ancestors.”
The report also confirms the fear that creating this ancient habitat and introducing now foreign species could cause more harm than good to the environment, modern species and the reintroduced species, “The results of Pleistocene re-wilding…are unknown and might well be catastrophic; ecosystem functioning could be disrupted, native flora and fauna, including species of conservation value, could be negatively impacted, and a host of other unanticipated ecological problems could arise…new parasites and diseases could be introduced; and food chains would be disrupted.”
These arguments lead to another argument: whether or not cloning endangered species, or perhaps even the extinct, could aid in conservation efforts. Surely, there is potential for some good to come from cloning. While some agree that dwindling species populations could be assisted with cloning efforts, others feel that the time and money spent attempting to clone animal populations back from the brink of extinction should be spent on conservation efforts to prevent the need for a cloning intervention.
In Cloning After Dolly, author Gregory Pence wrote, “The World Wildlife Fund said the only way correct way to preserve endangered species was to preserve natural habitat. Relying on cloning excuses the destruction of natural habitat. The attitude is ‘if the animals become extinct, we can always clone some later’.” Pence writes that resurrecting the extinct or trying to prevent endangered species from dying out is to interfere with evolution and argues that might not be a good thing. He argues that species becoming extinct is just part of evolution. Pence further states that cloning might only be a temporary solution to the problem of preserving endangered and or extinct animals, “…if forces that brought about the original demise are not changed, cloning will only be a stopgap measure.”
We may never get to live amongst the woolly mammoth in our lifetime, but Kazufumi Goto and Akira Iritani are confident that it is possible. Even if the mammoth is not to be, perhaps new insights will be gained as to why this creature is no longer with us and how we can better conserve our environment and protect the species we have left.
Sources
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