![]() ![]() The dodo has, throughout history, been characterized as a plump, clumsy bird too dumb to prevent its own demise a tragic creature destined for extinction. ![]() The question, then: Should Colossal de-extinct the dodo? Bad luck bird They often quote a familiar line, inextricably tied to de-extinction efforts, from Jurassic Park's Ian Malcolm: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could… that they didn't stop to think if they should." Some researchers have dubbed de-extinction a "fairytale science" and criticized Colossal's press-heavy approach. They suggest reintroducing these species to the wild could provide ecological benefits and even help fight climate change. Proponents of de-extinction point out how advances in biotechnology, bioinformatics and genetics have made it possible to create simulacra of long-dead species, even if the process is difficult and lengthy. "What we're trying to do is create proxies for these species that are adapted to the environments that are there today."Īs with all de-extinction efforts, there remain significant technological hurdles, ethical caveats and unanswered questions. "It would be disingenuous to say that we're re-creating something that's 100% identical to something that existed," Shapiro says. The dodo is one of the most enduring emblems of extinction. What is clear, however, is the extinction of the dodo was partially caused by us - humans. "Extinction" was a word used to describe the quenching of fires, not the demise of entire species. It's unclear exactly when because, at the time the dodo roamed the jungles of Mauritius, the idea that any animal might one day cease to exist was preposterous. The dodo was wiped out no more than a century after the Dutch arrived. But the most enduring emblem of the island's extinct species is, without doubt, the dodo, or Raphus cucullatus. Some species disappeared before anyone even noticed. It was a slow burn: Sailors who colonized the island destroyed its natural habitat and introduced alien species like rats, pigs and monkeys that could outcompete the island's native residents for resources. Yet the threat posed to their modern-day relatives - creatures like the blue pigeon, the scops owl and the broad-billed parrot - by the Dutch fleet was far more insidious. That rogue rock ended the reign of the dinosaurs in dramatic fashion. The wildlife of Mauritius, a tropical island in the Indian Ocean about 500 miles east of Madagascar, couldn't have known that the giant shadows cast across the bay in 1598 would signal doom.Ī fleet of Dutch ships had arrived, mirroring the Chicxulub asteroid that had crashed into in the Yucatan peninsula some 66 million years earlier. ![]()
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