Cloning brings back Dire Wolf

11 April 2025, 07:13

LHeym500

Market Hunting is not sport hunting.

Market Hunting is a specific thing that is no longer permitted with few exceptions in the US, and is rejected by the North American Model of conservation.

Mammoths and Dire Wolves ecosystems no longer exists. Those creatures should be left to the past w their ecosystems. Man should not be creating species where nature could not; ie crossing Dire Wolves and Grey Wolves.

Yes market hunting contributed to loss of species and near extinctions.

11 April 2025, 07:22

crbutler

More to the main debate here, I do think that trying to recreate species (accurately) is a very valid scientific study.

If we can actually breed a population of dire wolves (as in accurate to their original DNA) the science of embryology and evolution becomes more accurately known. That is a good thing.

I agree that releasing a previously extinct species into an extant habitat as a "rewilding" is potentially a big mess. It certainly shouldn't be done without a much better understanding of the risks than we know now.

But releasing northern timber wolves into previously prairie wolf habitat has been done, and the protection of them has been under the endangered species act... and the people involved seem to think everything is hunky-dory.

Would anyone have an objection to cloning the Northern White Rhino and reintroducing it to its prior areas? I would hope not... even though it was made extinct, which seems to be some's rationale that its ecosystem no longer exists...

I would love to see the passenger pigeon be resurrected. Same to the Dodo.

As humans evolved on this planet, I guess whatever we do is a natural effect of evolution here...

We don't know. Until we develop time travel, we are unlikely to be able to determine the causes of extinction accurately, especially without bringing back the species and evaluating them.

11 April 2025, 08:31

Magine Enigam

Wow, doc, you are expressing something rare and sorta intangible.

It's a values thing.

It's what a greenpeacer would say, or an environmentalist.

A greenie or tree hugger, as the rightists say.

The contrast is in my previous post:

quote:
Originally posted by Magine Enigam:
https://wapo.st/3R88Yvc

Trump team cites wolf ‘de-extinction’ as it seeks to cut endangered species list
The interior secretary hailed a biotech company’s claim to have brought back the dire wolf, while the administration and GOP push to roll back species protections.

Updated today at 1:54 p.m. EDT

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11 April 2025, 15:02

LHeym500

quote:
Originally posted by crbutler:
More to the main debate here, I do think that trying to recreate species (accurately) is a very valid scientific study.

If we can actually breed a population of dire wolves (as in accurate to their original DNA) the science of embryology and evolution becomes more accurately known. That is a good thing.

I agree that releasing a previously extinct species into an extant habitat as a "rewilding" is potentially a big mess. It certainly shouldn't be done without a much better understanding of the risks than we know now.

But releasing northern timber wolves into previously prairie wolf habitat has been done, and the protection of them has been under the endangered species act... and the people involved seem to think everything is hunky-dory.

Would anyone have an objection to cloning the Northern White Rhino and reintroducing it to its prior areas? I would hope not... even though it was made extinct, which seems to be some's rationale that its ecosystem no longer exists...

I would love to see the passenger pigeon be resurrected. Same to the Dodo.

As humans evolved on this planet, I guess whatever we do is a natural effect of evolution here...

We don't know. Until we develop time travel, we are unlikely to be able to determine the causes of extinction accurately, especially without bringing back the species and evaluating them.

No it is not. Why these creatures lost the evolutionary battle for something that is still here. There is no ecosystem for them. They need to be co-signed to history along with the non-existent ecosystem that supported them. Evolution is a long process. We need not be doing what evolution could not. In this case, hybridizing grey and Dire Wolfs.

It is bad science and needs regulated.

Dire wolves disappeared w the travail of slices. That is clear from the published science based on dna and the gossipy record. They could not compete.

Anything is possible, but another explanation is not reasonable. The ecosystem of the Dire Wolfs is gone. They both need to stay gone.

11 April 2025, 17:42

theback40

Over 99% of all species that have existed on earth, has gone extinct. Extinction is part of the overall process of time.
On the other side, I think the science involved is fascinating.

11 April 2025, 22:40

crbutler

We are going to have to disagree then that this is bad science.

Releasing this hybrid into the wild would be bad, but not bad science. It would reduce resources for a time to the native animals… and if the dire wolf as you say is not suited to the environment and is noncompetitive, I would result in no net change as it would die out again.

I agree this is not a dire wolf, it is a hybrid based on phenotype, but the use of genetic engineering to create a new individual is a scientific threshold that is important.

Your argument is more on the use of the science than on its being good or bad.

I’d submit a genetic engineering treatment for cystic fibrosis would be welcomed. This kind of experiment lays basic knowledge for how that can be accomplished.

11 April 2025, 22:49

crbutler

Well, maybe the righties are not all brainwashed sheep…

As to Trumps’s DOI trying to get protections lifted for the wolves, while I disagree about the genetic cloning being a reason to not protect, my point would be that these wolves are actually an invasive species (not the original ones) and that overall they are not endangered.

We have some timber wolves in MN. They have been here quite a while. The ESA use has gotten them past any historic numbers here and our local moose population is approaching local extinction due to it.

I’d hate to see northern MN without wolves… but we have too many at the moment and the one size fits all use of the ESA is a problem.

quote:
Originally posted by Magine Enigam:
Wow, doc, you are expressing something rare and sorta intangible.

It's a values thing.

It's what a greenpeacer would say, or an environmentalist.

A greenie or tree hugger, as the rightists say.

The contrast is in my previous post:

quote:
Originally posted by Magine Enigam:
https://wapo.st/3R88Yvc

Trump team cites wolf ‘de-extinction’ as it seeks to cut endangered species list
The interior secretary hailed a biotech company’s claim to have brought back the dire wolf, while the administration and GOP push to roll back species protections.

Updated today at 1:54 p.m. EDT

11 April 2025, 22:57

shankspony

quote:
Originally posted by crbutler:
More to the main debate here, I do think that trying to recreate species (accurately) is a very valid scientific study.

If we can actually breed a population of dire wolves (as in accurate to their original DNA) the science of embryology and evolution becomes more accurately known. That is a good thing.

I agree that releasing a previously extinct species into an extant habitat as a "rewilding" is potentially a big mess. It certainly shouldn't be done without a much better understanding of the risks than we know now.

But releasing northern timber wolves into previously prairie wolf habitat has been done, and the protection of them has been under the endangered species act... and the people involved seem to think everything is hunky-dory.

Would anyone have an objection to cloning the Northern White Rhino and reintroducing it to its prior areas? I would hope not... even though it was made extinct, which seems to be some's rationale that its ecosystem no longer exists...

I would love to see the passenger pigeon be resurrected. Same to the Dodo.

As humans evolved on this planet, I guess whatever we do is a natural effect of evolution here...

We don't know. Until we develop time travel, we are unlikely to be able to determine the causes of extinction accurately, especially without bringing back the species and evaluating them.

NZ is a classic example. We lost hundreds of species over the last 900 years explicitly due to the arrival of humans and a mix of introduced predators and over hunting.

There is I think, a place for de extinction where we can recover and clone from authentic DNA. But I suspect the hard part would be providing an environment they could establish in.

12 April 2025, 23:12

shankspony

Probably the most important question in all of this, Is why did they name the female pup after a Targaryen? And not a Stark?

13 April 2025, 23:49

LHeym500

I mean Ghost would have been better.

The point is their is no ecosystem to support extinct megafauna from the Paleolithic period does not exists,

The mammoth, the Dire Wolf, Giant Sloth, and whatever you want to pick has no niche or world to come back to. The ecosystems themselves are gone.

5.7 million years ago is when Dire Wolves and Wolves separated. They could not breed and produce viable offspring. Wolves showed up from Asia. Wolves could adapt and made it. Only displaced by market killing. We still have wolves. Dire did not survive the competition and environmental changes.

Here we are. Evolution takes many decades, millennia. We have made a new species by hybridizing Dire and Wolves when nature could not.

This is not good science. Colossal claims there is return these ecological systems. Bringing megatons long extinct (worse brand new megafauna) is not repairing ecosystems. The Paleolithic ecosystem is gone. Its megafauna are not coming back. We do not need to be creating new megafauna that have no niche over those that survived the evolutionary, adaptive wheel.

14 April 2025, 23:20

shankspony

I agree. And you can't in fact call it a Dire Wolf. It's a genetically interfered with, wolf.
Those genes can not be allowed into the wild population.

15 April 2025, 00:00

crbutler

If the dire wolf died out 10,000 years ago (which was claimed) and mammoth and mastodons more recently, are we sure they do not have a niche? The snow geese are destroying the tundra. Is that a lack of a large herbivore to keep their ability to eat all the lichen in check?

The point is, we don’t really know.

I’m not saying we should release dire wolves, but rather we just don’t know what the extinction event was. Note that wolves supposedly came from Asia. We have decided that invasive species do cause a loss of biodiversity.

I don’t think these are dire wolves that Collosal has come up with… but it is a starting point. It’s a technological waypoint. Being able to clone extinct animals allows a discussion of deextinction for species that human or environmental disasters caused.

The Colossal wolves are not something that should be released or allowed to breed with the wild populace… but no one is saying that.