The Crazy (Yet Very Real) Plan to 'De-Extinct' Animals
Stewart Brand is a peculiar man. In 1968, he founded and then edited The Whole Earth Catalog, a "counterculture" magazine that put him in touch with some of the world's other peculiar men. After he was done with the publication, Brand moved on to other assorted projects. Each was, on some level, weird. One example? A 300-foot-tall clock (financed by Amazon's Jeff Bezos) buried inside a mountain that will tick uninterrupted for the next 10,000 years. Brand is that kind of guy. Which is why it's not surprising to learn of his new idea: the Revive and Restore project.
In a lengthy piece in the New York Times Magazine, we learn of the Revive and Restore mission. It started when Brand was doing something very Brand like — hosting a talk titled "Is Mass Extinction of Life on Earth Inevitable?" Fun stuff. During the discussion, Brand discovered his new life goal — to bring back extinct animals, a la Jurassic Park. While, yes, that means dinosaurs, Brand is starting small, with the passenger pigeon, an extinct bird that hasn't been seen since 1914.
Oddly enough, instantly, experts were intrigued by the idea. Even Brand's wife, Ryan Phelan, was ecstatic. "De-extinction went from concept to potential reality right before our eyes,” Phelan told the Times. "We realized that we could do it not only for the passenger pigeon, but for other species. There was so much interest and so many ideas that we needed to create an infrastructure around it. It was like, ‘Oh, my God, look at what we’ve unleashed." The idea quickly picked up steam because Brand framed de-extinction as a way to conserve animals and the environment.
Brand wants to start by bringing back the passenger pigeon, but then move on to the wooly mammoth. Yes, seriously. "We’re bringing back the mammoth to restore the steppe in the Arctic," Brand told the Times. "One or two mammoths is not a success. 100,000 mammoths is a success." A little refresher on the wooly mammoth: They're basically like the modern elephant, only...uh, wooly. The males can be between nine and 11 feet tall and weigh up to six tons. The females are slightly smaller. Then there are those giant tusks, which could be as long as 14 feet.
Since everyone wants dinosaurs back (cause the wooly mammoth isn't THAT exciting), what's the downside? Well, experts in other conservation fields are saying that the idea is too exciting to people, and that Brand's project will take much needed money away from keeping the endangered animals we have now alive. There's also the concern that wooly mammoths simply won't have enough environment to survive, and they'd just die off once again. Not to mention that de-extinction is incredibly complicated and the chances of it working are slim. Those are all very legitimate worries. But still...DINOSAURS!!!
[Image via Flickr - Ryan Soma]
