Wolly Mammoth nature reserve

[xenomorph555]

Before I was a space nerd I was a biology nerd, I loved everything to do with biology especially cloning, going on further from that I loved the idea of cloning and recreating extinct species. Of course some of this is fantasy (like dinosaurs) but I am absolutely certain that Mammoths can and will be recreated sometime in the future. After a while I got bored of biology and then moved onto nuclear physics/theology until eventually arriving here, but tonight I watched a documentary of a Mammoth autopsy of a course recovered last year (which I knew about at the time) and it resparked that love. I then saw how we are getting closer and I started thinking about how they will be cared for so I am asking you:

Where should they be kept:

How large should this "reserve be":

What food:

Other information...

I have my own ideas for the reserve, but I will reveal these later.

[Bill Phil]

Cloning extinct species is a generally bad idea. The world is so different than it was back then. It might require a complete habitat recreation in a pressurized volume, but that's a worst-case scenario. It should be decent... But predator protection ( IE Humans) would be a must have. A custom built reserve is a good idea.

[Kryten]

This is not going to happen. Even if we pretend we're going to get a complete enough DNA sequence for cloning, nobody would sign off on putting endangered animals in danger by using them as surrogates. If we pretend that wasn't an issue, we know mammoths were social animals and it'd be impossible to socialise cloned ones; and if we choose to ignore that issue, we run into the issue of the relevant ecosystem no longer existing.

[Moar Boosters]

This is not going to happen. Even if we pretend we're going to get a complete enough DNA sequence for cloning, nobody would sign off on putting endangered animals in danger by using them as surrogates. If we pretend that wasn't an issue, we know mammoths were social animals and it'd be impossible to socialise cloned ones; and if we choose to ignore that issue, we run into the issue of the relevant ecosystem no longer existing.

African elephants aren't endangered. In recent years they had to cull them in various national parks in South Africa due to over-population.

The problem isn't doing it, I think the main problem would be the inevitable negative backlash you'd receive after you'd made one.

[NERVAfan]

If they can get enough DNA, I think it's probably quite doable with sufficient funding - which is (as usual) the big question.

nobody would sign off on putting endangered animals in danger by using them as surrogates.

Asian Elephants are regularly used as work animals in the areas they're native to. And IIRC this work is Russian, the laws may be different there.

If we pretend that wasn't an issue, we know mammoths were social animals and it'd be impossible to socialise cloned ones;

What about putting them in with an elephant herd in a zoo? Or raise a bunch of mammoth calves together, something will probably develop. It won't be identical to behaviors of original mammoths, but does that really matter?

and if we choose to ignore that issue, we run into the issue of the relevant ecosystem no longer existing.

It wouldn't prevent cloning them and keeping them in a zoo or fenced preserve. And I don't think the ecosystem is so different that mammoths couldn't survive in the wild, either. 10,000 years or so is not that long in evolutionary time - the most significant changes are the extinction of all the megafauna (which shouldn't prevent revived mammoths from surviving) and the warming of the planet (solvable by putting them farther north, in the areas that currently have the kind of habitat the mammoths lived in in their time).

[Kryten]

If they can get enough DNA

They can't, and it's very likely they never will.

Asian Elephants are regularly used as work animals in the areas they're native to.

This makes them not endangered how, exactly? I could put a saddlebag on a przewalski's horse, wouldn't change the IUCN listing.

What about putting them in with an elephant herd in a zoo? Or raise a bunch of mammoth calves together, something will probably develop. It won't be identical to behaviors of original mammoths, but does that really matter?

Culture is as fundamental a part of an animal as genetics; you might as well ask why you're bothering with this cloning instead of selectively breeding hairier elephants.

It wouldn't prevent cloning them and keeping them in a zoo or fenced preserve. And I don't think the ecosystem is so different that mammoths couldn't survive in the wild, either. 10,000 years or so is not that long in evolutionary time - the most significant changes are the extinction of all the megafauna (which shouldn't prevent revived mammoths from surviving) and the warming of the planet (solvable by putting them farther north, in the areas that currently have the kind of habitat the mammoths lived in in their time).

That habitat no longer exists, that's my point. All areas now are too warm, or have too little sunlight, or too deep soil, or too much water. The same kinds of vegetation do exist, but only in small areas with the right conditions (well-drained south-facing hillslopes).

[N_las]

Cloning extinct species is a generally bad idea. The world is so different than it was back then. It might require a complete habitat recreation in a pressurized volume, but that's a worst-case scenario. It should be decent... But predator protection ( IE Humans) would be a must have. A custom built reserve is a good idea.

"The world is so different than it was back then..."

I don't think you are aware on how recent the extinction of mammoths took place. There were still living mammoths on Wrangel island after the pyramids were build. It is likely, that mammoths didn't go extinct because of changing climate, but because of human hunting activity.

We have many "fresh" mammoth cadaver that were preserved in cold places. Getting a complete DNA seqence isn't really a big problem.

[Bill Phil]

"The world is so different than it was back then..."

I don't think you are aware on how recent the extinction of mammoths took place. There were still living mammoths on Wrangel island after the pyramids were build. It is likely, that mammoths didn't go extinct because of changing climate, but because of human hunting activity.

We have many "fresh" mammoth cadaver that were preserved in cold places. Getting a complete DNA seqence isn't really a big problem.

I was talking about extinct species in general...

[NERVAfan]

This makes them not endangered how, exactly? I could put a saddlebag on a przewalski's horse, wouldn't change the IUCN listing.

They are IUCN endangered, sure, but that doesn't by itself prohibit anyone from doing anything. The IUCN does not make laws.

Culture is as fundamental a part of an animal as genetics; you might as well ask why you're bothering with this cloning instead of selectively breeding hairier elephants.

I would disagree strongly. The capacity is fundamental, sure, but not any particular set of such behaviors. New mammoths would develop a new set of behaviors, not found in Pleistocene ones - but they wouldn't have been uniform over the huge time and space inhabited by Pleistocene mammoths either.

That habitat no longer exists, that's my point. All areas now are too warm, or have too little sunlight, or too deep soil, or too much water.

Um, how? Taiga/boreal forests are still around, they've just moved much farther north. There are plenty of places on Earth just as cold as mammoth habitat was back then, and plenty of them are dry. Sunlight hitting the Earth hasn't changed much. Why would deep soil be a bad thing?

Would it be an exactly 100% perfect recreation of any particular Pleistocene mammoth habitat? No. But woolly mammoths as a pretty widespread species must have had a fairly wide range of habitat tolerance, and I'm pretty sure there are some modern taiga/boreal forests that would fall within that range.

[NERVAfan]

I was talking about extinct species in general...

I think most if not all of the species that it might be possible to get sufficient DNA to revive were made extinct by humans. DNA doesn't preserve well over geological time (it doesn't even preserve that well over much shorter timescales).

[Bill Phil]

I think most if not all of the species that it might be possible to get sufficient DNA to revive were made extinct by humans. DNA doesn't preserve well over geological time (it doesn't even preserve that well over much shorter timescales).

I was referring to environment change.

[Drunken Hobo]

I think it'd be best to start on something a bit easier first, like that Chinese river dolphin that went extinct around 10 years ago. I assume there would still be some viable specimens around.

[Kryten]

They are IUCN endangered, sure, but that doesn't by itself prohibit anyone from doing anything. The IUCN does not make laws.

No, but CITES does. Asian elephants, the only close living relatives to woolly mammoths, are on CITES appendix one.

I would disagree strongly. The capacity is fundamental, sure, but not any particular set of such behaviors. New mammoths would develop a new set of behaviors, not found in Pleistocene ones - but they wouldn't have been uniform over the huge time and space inhabited by Pleistocene mammoths either.

Some behaviours would be adaptive for the morphological and ecological differences in woolly mammoth, and likely to be retained throughout the population; all currently gone. There must have been hundreds of cold-environment specific behaviours, none of which are exactly likely in living elephant species, and it is questionable if a resurrected mammoth would be fit to survive in such a habitat without these behaviours.

Um, how? Taiga/boreal forests are still around, they've just moved much farther north. There are plenty of places on Earth just as cold as mammoth habitat was back then, and plenty of them are dry. Sunlight hitting the Earth hasn't changed much. Why would deep soil be a bad thing?

Steppe tundra is not. Changing latitude changes length of the seasons as well as average temperature, this has major effects on ecology.

Would it be an exactly 100% perfect recreation of any particular Pleistocene mammoth habitat? No. But woolly mammoths as a pretty widespread species must have had a fairly wide range of habitat tolerance, and I'm pretty sure there are some modern taiga/boreal forests that would fall within that range.

They were as widespread as the steppe tundra; now it's gone, partially for climatic reasons and partially because there are no grazers left to maintain it.

EDIT:

I think it'd be best to start on something a bit easier first, like that Chinese river dolphin that went extinct around 10 years ago. I assume there would still be some viable specimens around.

Scientists have actually reached the point of un-extincting an organism; the Pyrenean Ibex, wiped out ca. 2000. Since it's merely a subspecies and the remaining subspecies live in very similar habitats, most of the original culture as well as genetics could be preserved, and it was closely enough related to very common animals (the goat) that they could have surrogacy without major ethical issues. Unfortunately the cloning only resulted in one animal, which died soon after birth, and they've not tried since.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Kryten

[King Arthur]

The problem isn't doing it, I think the main problem would be the inevitable negative backlash you'd receive after you'd made one.

"Don't play god" is one of the most innane and harmful arguments one could make against science.

[Aningaaq]

"Don't play god" is one of the most innane and harmful arguments one could make against science.

1. He didn't say that.

2. He was talking about ethics and he has a point. The ethical debate about cloning such a massive creature still goes on.

[King Arthur]

I never said he did, in fact I was agreeing with his statement that "the main problem would be the inevitable negative backlash you'd receive after you'd made one."

[Kulebron]

They can't, and it's very likely they never will.

http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6946/20140313/woolly-mammoth-dna-cloning-elephant-clone.htm

A team of international scientists are extracting high quality DNA from the remains of a woolly mammoth that lived 43,000 years ago, with the aim of joining it with the DNA of an elephant, they told The Siberian Times Thursday. Results from the necropsy of the woolly mammoth in Yakutsk, Sakha Republic  due to wind up Saturday after more than 10 months of analysis  has caused "palpable excitement" within the team of scientists, hailing from Russia, the UK, the United States, Denmark, South Korea, and Moldova.

...

Though the upper part of her carcass has been devoured by animals, the lower part (the legs and a detached trunk) was "astonishingly, very well preserved," Viktoria Egorova, chief of the research and clinical diagnostic laboratory of the medical clinic of North-Eastern Federal University told The Siberian Times. The mammoth, which may have met her demise by falling through a hole in the ice, lay in the permafrost of Maly Lyakhovskiy Island until it was found last May.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Kulebron

[Nibb31]

If you clone a species that is extinct, you also need to clone its environment (air, food) and the microbiote it needs to stay alive. The mammoth's gut flora alone is probably harder to reproduce than the actual genome.

[Streetwind]

I think restoring species that humanity has driven into extinction could potentially be a usefuol endeavour. Maybe not with mammoths, but maybe with species that are essential to our own survival. Like honeybees, which are dying off at a worrying rate, yet are absolutely critical for many of our food production chains.

But it needs to be considered carefully and from all angles. I always like to quote one of Jeff Goldblum's lines from Jurassic Park on topics like this. You know which line.

"(...) your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."

[Kryten]

http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6946/20140313/woolly-mammoth-dna-cloning-elephant-clone.htm

Lead on that is Hwang Woo-suk. Look him up.

If you clone a species that is extinct, you also need to clone its environment (air, food) and the microbiote it needs to stay alive. The mammoth's gut flora alone is probably harder to reproduce than the actual genome.

Gut flora is acquired from the environment, and almost never tied to a single species.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Kryten

[ZedNova]

What would be the point of bringing back a mammoth?

[xenomorph555]

- - - Updated - - -

I think restoring species that humanity has driven into extinction could potentially be a usefuol endeavour. Maybe not with mammoths, but maybe with species that are essential to our own survival. Like honeybees, which are dying off at a worrying rate, yet are absolutely critical for many of our food production chains.

But it needs to be considered carefully and from all angles. I always like to quote one of Jeff Goldblum's lines from Jurassic Park on topics like this. You know which line.

"(...) your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."

Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction...

If I was to create a flock of condors on this island, you wouldn't have anything to say.

[magnemoe]

What would be the point of bringing back a mammoth?

Mammoths are cool and why not do it.

Only reason why not is cost and that you could do other stuff instead.

I can not see any ethical issues, that is unless you will need hundreds of tries to get it right but in that case the cost would make it impossible anyway.

[magnemoe]

- - - Updated - - -

Condors. Condors are on the verge of extinction...

If I was to create a flock of condors on this island, you wouldn't have anything to say.

Species on the verge of extinction is far simpler, worst case bread in captivity and release.

[MartGonzo]

Maybe one day it could be done, but cloning doesn't really work with our current tech, it's not widely talked about but cloning leads to abnormalities in gene expression resulting in carcinogenesis and usually death, even seemingly healthy cloned animals show significant genetic damage.

Genetic engineering is not the precise science the public think it is, I'd highly recommend a documentary called genetic roulette, it's analogous to throwing a load of DNA in a bucket giving it a stir an hoping for the best.