Yeah, but boy, the price of ivory 1911 grips would sure come down 
Posted on 06/01/2013 8:59:16 AM PDT by TaxPayer2000
The world's last passenger pigeons perished a century ago. But a Santa Cruz-based research project could send them flocking into the skies again, using genetic engineering to restore the once-abundant species and chart a revival for other long-gone creatures.
The promise and peril of "resurrection biology" -- which could bring back other long-gone species such as the woolly mammoth and Tasmanian tiger but runs the risk of undermining conservation efforts -- was the topic for experts who gathered Friday at Stanford University's Center for Law and the Biosciences.
"The grand goal is to bring the passenger pigeon back to life," said researcher Ben Novak of Revive and Restore, supported by entrepreneur Stewart Brand's Long Now Foundation of San Francisco and conducted at UC Santa Cruz. "We're at the baby step of stage one."
After studying old and damaged gene fragments of 70 dead passenger pigeons in the lab of UCSC professor Beth Shapiro, the team will assemble -- in computers -- the genetic code of the bird once hunted to extinction. They hope to complete that within a year.
Within two years, they plan to synthesize the actual DNA code, using commercially available nucleotides. This material will be inserted into the embryo of the passenger pigeon's closest living relative, a band-tailed pigeon.
Then there will be new challenges, Shapiro said.
"We need to turn it into a creature. We have to raise a captive breeding herd.
Then there is the tricky part of going from a captive breeding bird to a live, thriving population in the wild," she said.
Passenger pigeons once numbered in the billions, blackening the skies and inspiring naturalists like John James Audubon, John Muir and Aldo Leopold. They had vanished by the first World War, victims of hunting and habitat loss.
But resurrected flocks reintroduced into a modern environment could be an invasive species, noted Andrew Torrance of the University of Kansas Law School. They also would be genetically modified organisms, subject to federal regulation. "This could make reintroduction a challenge, under current law," said Alex Camacho, director of UC Irvine's Center for Land, Environment and Natural Resources. "The Endangered Species Act did not contemplate revival of extinct species."
Some conservationists say bringing back lost species will distract from conservation of living species in danger of extinction. Why work to restore the woolly mammoth, they ask, when poachers are killing off African elephants?
"I am concerned that people will not work hard enough to keep species from going extinct," said Terry Root of Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment.
Others ask: Is there still a role for these species? How would an animal fare in a world much different from the one it left?
But there is also hope that revival would help restore the world's diminishing biodiversity.
Extinction may not be forever, due to such fast-moving scientific progress, said conference organizer Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences.
"My current view is that it is worth pursuing in a careful and prudent way," he said.
Given California's acrimonious battles over allocation of water for wildlife and humans, some residents may not welcome the return of now-extinct fish species, such as the thick-tail chub, said Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, who cautioned he was not speaking for his agency.
What about the California grizzly bear -- "Do I bring that back?" he asked.
"At some point we will be doing this. ... We've rounded a corner. ... We need to stop worrying about theoreticals and start discussing how it will happen," he said.
Contact Lisa M. Krieger at 650-492-4098.
In other words; "experts" are concerned that bringing back extinct species may halt the gravy train.
Very curious and interesting. Jurassic Park except in real life. I’d personally love a dinosaur zoo.
Typically when a species goes under, it’s because conditions no longer provide a suitable home for it. Being able to resurrect extinct things would be nice (it provides a very unambiguous interpretation of the DNA, nothing like a live critter right there). But it probably wouldn’t help “save the eagles” or anything like that.
those species that are extinct should remain that way. Do not play God.
It would come closer to playing God, I think, to try to engineer new species from scratch. Genetic engineering is the thin end of this wedge. Imagine an elephapotamus or a zebraraffe or something else that mere breeding would never yield. As for bringing extinct species back to the wild... again it’s usually because conditions were not ripe for it so it would be in vain. I might see an exception for things like the dodo and passenger pigeon, which clearly met demise by being overhunted by humans.
” the dodo and passenger pigeon,”
Did they taste like chicken? The Dodo might be a good food source.
The passenger pigeon is an interesting case. I’ve read that one major reason for their extinction was chestnut tree fungus of 1904. That fungus took out the vast majority of those trees which provided a large food source for those birds.
The trees have still not recovered, so what will happen to the pigeon?
Dodo.
The other, other, other white meat.
To be able to bring back enough dodos to answer the question would be informative. I believe they perished for their plumage, though. I never heard of any historical account of people raving over roast dodo.
True, a born again passenger pigeon species might have to be kept in zoos for lack of better feeding capability.
Yeah, but boy, the price of ivory 1911 grips would sure come down
These sorts of schemes strike me as dubious, but I’ll have to admit, I’d love to see the Carolina Parakeet take wing again. They were hunted to extinction early in the twentieth century I believe, because their plumage was highly prized for women’s hats.
Early explorer accounts have them filling the skies to the point of putting the ground beneath in shadow, though, so a full revival would likely be a threat to commercial and military aviation, among other potential complications.
While shooting elephants is now deeply frowned upon (except for case by case culls where the elephants are pests) it seems to me that every elephant dies naturally if nothing else, and therefore if you can find where it did, you can get ivory without any pangs of conscience.
Did they fly lower than most modern aircraft? I’d think that if the two approached, the parakeets would scurry to make room for those strange noisy things.
Apparently, that is why they went extinct the 1st time.
This kind of tampering has no legitimate purpose, and could have disastrous side effects.
Jeremiah 17 just keeps on being reinforced, day by day.
The legendary “Elephant Burial Ground.”
That I don’t know, but I do recall reading that they darkened the sky, way back, during the earliest European exploration.
I read an account somewhere of a sailor who said dodos really weren’t all that tasty. Sort of greasy and unsavory; the gizzard was apparently the only thing that tasted good.
It would be interesting to see a dodo, I must admit, but I don’t know if I’d really want to chow down on dodo McNuggets.
As if there isn’t enough pigeon $hit falling from the sky already.
I have a mourning dove roosting on my garage door opener. I wish the hell she’d hatch those eggs and get out of my garage. Shiite all over the place. My girlfriend says to knock the nest down and close the overhead. I go out there, talk to mama and implore her to shit or get off the nest. She may be the only one I shoot this season.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.