Scientists are getting very close to bringing a few iconic species, like woolly mammoths and dodos, back from extinction. That may not be a good thing.
It’s not that long gone. There were still mammoths around when the pyramids were built. Plus there’s still huge swaths of tundra and taiga that they could live on, with a lot of the same plants, even if it’s quite a bit warmer.
Not advocating for restoring the mammoth, but this is a dangerous line of argument.
With climate change and ongoing mass extinctions, many current species are or will soon be in the same situation that re-introduced mammoths would be—and you could use the same argument to say that trying to preserve them is cruel so we should kill off any current species facing environmental stress.
The world they lived in is long gone along with the food they ate and the rest of their species. It seems almost cruel to bring them back.
It’s not that long gone. There were still mammoths around when the pyramids were built. Plus there’s still huge swaths of tundra and taiga that they could live on, with a lot of the same plants, even if it’s quite a bit warmer.
Not advocating for restoring the mammoth, but this is a dangerous line of argument.
With climate change and ongoing mass extinctions, many current species are or will soon be in the same situation that re-introduced mammoths would be—and you could use the same argument to say that trying to preserve them is cruel so we should kill off any current species facing environmental stress.
They were here pretty recently, their food is still here. It was cruel that we extincted them.
Nah. It’s still the same place. They died out within the time frame of completely modern humans.