CRISPR Woolly Mammoth hybrid

[dragon53]

LINK: https://www.cnet.com/news/crispr-startup-wants-to-create-woolly-mammoth-hybrids-by-2027/

[indohyus]

While intriguing, would be a hard thing to accomplish.

[CityRaptor]

Haven't various groups claimed that they were gonna do that since the 90s? All without results. So yeah, actually produce that hairy elephant and then we will talk.

[SidB]

In the actual world, what nobody wants to mention or talk about, would be the line-up of hunters and poachers who would be itching to kill one, and the money hungry individuals who would want to offer the former a chance to do just that. We remain the number one problem - "I've seen the enemy and he is us."

[BlueKrono]

S @SidB Excellent point. Try convincing humans not to kill black rhinos first. The lust for de-extincted mammoth ivory would be far more fierce. I think we'd have to work on poverty in general to have any hope of fixing this problem.

[stargatedalek]

I doubt it very much. Mammoth ivory would have no value in the medical trade due to being "artificial". It'd just be trophy hunters interested, and hey, once the population grows large enough there is going to need to be organized culling anyway to keep disease in check within an artificially managed population that has no predators...

[ITdactyl]

Getting an Asian elephant hybrid with the traits of a woolly mammoth by 2027 seems easy enough, but I'm not for this idea.

1. They argue that the preservation of the endangered Asian elephant can be handled by other groups and this project will concentrate on preserving the genetic legacy of Asian elephants.    Sounds too much like a "space race" to me.  Asian elephant habitats are shrinking, and their migration routes have been blocked by growing cities and dammed rivers. The species needs help, so for them to be viewed as a mere surrogate/donor species by the mammoth project feels off.

2. They will use a 60 square mile rewilding site in Northern Russia. - I was for the "Pleistocene Park" project when it was announced for faux-aurochs.  A herd of cattle doesn't have the same landscape altering effect as a herd of elephants, and these can be "controlled" by the wolves and brown bears in the area. But introducing faux mammoths in lands that haven't had mammoths in 10,000 years?  They haven't even talked about how they're preparing the rewilding site.  And how viable will the chosen site be in the next few years considering the effects of global warming?

3. They want to use artificial womb technology for the project (since surrogacy through Asian elephants will be impractical) - Yikes.  We know this works for lambs; but mammoths?

I guess there's no stopping projects like these. I have to admit, the science fascinates me, but there are better causes to funnel that money into IMO.

[Newt]

A few random thoughts:


Re-creating pseudo-mammoths is basically a stunt, but it may have some valuable technological spinoffs, much like the Apollo program.


I think it's a fallacy that there is a pool of "proboscidean conservation funding" out there, and any dollar not spent on making pseudo-mammoths is available for helping out extant elephant populations. More likely, if this project were canned that money would be re-allocated to entirely different uses, not even necessarily science related. I am reminded of the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) project that the US government began building, then shuttered back in the twilight of the last millennium, when I was just an eft. Political opponents to the project decried its tremendous cost and pointed out that those funds could make a huge difference in alleviating poverty or finding new medical treatments. But when the government shut it down, the money they had budgeted for completing it did not go these worthy goals, it just vanished back into the Pentagon. So now there's a half-built advanced particle research facility moldering in the wilds of Texas (at least, I think it's still there).


Rewilding is an intriguing concept, but I think we must be realistic about what can actually be done. The mammoth steppe is not coming back, nor are any other vanished ecosystems. The best we can do is create a novel ecosystem that shares some of the properties and (hopefully) functions of those lost ecosystems. I also do worry that the notion of rewilding takes some of the urgency out of conservation efforts if people think "We can always recreate the rainforests/coral reefs/whatever later if we end up destroying them all".


Re: mammoth ivory - IF (which I doubt) pseudo-mammoths are successfully established, that could certainly create some headaches for ivory law enforcement. Mammoth ivory can be legally sold, and probably that of pseudo-mammoths would also be legal, unless the Russian government chose to protect them. Certainly CITES and other international organizations would not protect what is essentially an artificial animal. That's all fine and good, except that it opens the door for savvy poachers to harvest ivory from Asian and African elephants and launder it through the pseudo-mammoth ivory market. I suppose if pseudo-mammoths were sufficiently successful their ivory could flood the market and bring prices down enough that poaching became financially unattractive, but that seems far-fetched and certainly would not happen for many generations.


Re: rewilding - Has anyone tried just raising Asian elephants in the far north? Elephants are far more cold-hardy than their current range would suggest. They might do pretty well once the grasslands are established. I bet we'd see furry Asian elephants within a few generations without having to bother with introducing mammoth DNA.

[stargatedalek]

No personal offence, but these are the exact arguments that bother me so intensely when used in other contexts, so while I have little care about de-extincting mammoths I have to disagree vehemently.

Getting an Asian elephant hybrid with the traits of a woolly mammoth by 2027 seems easy enough, but I'm not for this idea.

1. They argue that the preservation of the endangered Asian elephant can be handled by other groups and this project will concentrate on preserving the genetic legacy of Asian elephants.    Sounds too much like a "space race" to me.  Asian elephant habitats are shrinking, and their migration routes have been blocked by growing cities and dammed rivers. The species needs help, so for them to be viewed as a mere surrogate/donor species by the mammoth project feels off.

As newt said there is no reason to assume the funding for this project would go into conservation for wild populations of Asian elephants if it were to be shelved. Plus there is an argument for not putting all of your elephants in one basket.

The US was pretty lucky that after you guys killed off almost all the bald eagles that were still some left in Atlantic Canada to reintroduce*. Asian elephants don't have that luxury of geographically diverse wild populations, once their habitat hits a critical point they're gone. While there are some in captivity, preserving a viable genetic population hasn't really been of primary concern yet, so even if the reason is mostly about mammoths it still presents a decent opportunity for this endeavour to serve dual functions and preserve a genetically viable Asian elephant population in captivity.

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/u-s-canada-bald-eagle-program-hailed-as-success-1.3712169

2. They will use a 60 square mile rewilding site in Northern Russia. - I was for the "Pleistocene Park" project when it was announced for faux-aurochs.  A herd of cattle doesn't have the same landscape altering effect as a herd of elephants, and these can be "controlled" by the wolves and brown bears in the area. But introducing faux mammoths in lands that haven't had mammoths in 10,000 years?  They haven't even talked about how they're preparing the rewilding site.  And how viable will the chosen site be in the next few years considering the effects of global warming?

10,000 years is not as long ago as you seem to be thinking. The intention is that the mammoths do change the environment of the reintroduction site, that's a large part of the intention of re-wilding. More information on the site would be nice to know, but warming shouldn't be a huge concern (yet), as woolly mammoths did just fine in sub-tropical areas of the US, and were very common in temperate regions.

I guess there's no stopping projects like these. I have to admit, the science fascinates me, but there are better causes to funnel that money into IMO.

This, this right here grinds my gears like nothing else. I know politics are generally discouraged here, but I think it might be relevant to offering a broader extrapolation of why this is a flawed perspective.

Imagine for a moment that you are a vulnerable group, and people are arguing against efforts to try and stop hateful acts against people like you or provide said group with needed resources or legal protections, on the basis of "We haven't fixed other problem yet!". That feels pretty awful right?

When you grow up hearing "your rights as a trans woman don't matter because we haven't dealt with homophobia yet", then "your rights as a lesbian don't matter because they muddy the water of trying to stop misogyny", then "feminism isn't worth spending money on when racism still exists" only to be followed up with "racism against Asian Americans isn't important when African Americans are still getting shot by cops" it tends to leave you with a very detailed perspective on why this particular fallacy is so destructive and unproductive.

Does it make more logical sense to try and re-wild something with a completely preserved habitat, that even has plant species its reintroduction would objectively benefit? Yes, but for whatever reason people don't want giant flightless pigeons, they want hairy elephants, and so the mammoth gets all this attention while dodos are relegated to novelty despite their habitat still being there waiting for them.

We can lament their choices all we want, but going "it isn't fair that money is going into mammoths instead of Asian elephant conservation" is not going to accomplish anything and at most is just going to get projects like this shelved indefinitely while that money gets sent to arms manufacturing or subsidies for destructive mining industries that aren't even self sufficient.

Don't play project funding olympics, support all of the projects that have potential to do good, and encourage all of them to continue operating simultaneously. If you play into this idea that we need to focus on the most important thing at a time only that encourages toxic worldviews and policy decisions.

[ITdactyl]

Don't worry @stargatedalek , none taken. You've no idea how much I appreciate discussions like these - although I beg you indulge me while I explain my side.

1. I'm well aware that this is not a conservation project and aside from the use of Asian elephants as a surrogate species, this has no financial ties to asian elephant conservation.  I never said I wanted this project stopped (as if my opinion mattered), I'm just not a fan of it.  I'm also well aware of how the finances for animal conservation works (as I'll explain later) and how projects like the de-extinction of the mammoth do not really siphon money off any conservation efforts.

2.

10,000 years is not as long ago as you seem to be thinking

In terms of chronology sure, but in terms of faunal and floral turnover I have to disagree.
Considering the point that we're not talking about real mammoths and just hybrids:
- no natural predators, the faux mammoths will rely on humans for population management
- do we know if the current insect fauna can still manage Proboscidean dung?
- managers of the site admit that the large mammals currently present are only surviving with human intervention.  Even if it was once home to mammoths, it is currently inhospitable to large mammals.

3. I'm not sure why you assumed I wanted the funds of this project to be funneled to asian elephant conservation instead (although I'll admit that my wording was not very clear*).  The Pleistocene Park project itself would be awesome with more funding (even without the mammoths).  If that site was stabilized for large mammal reintroduction before they started talking about mammoths, I'd be fawning over the project.  So I have to ask, is it ethical to talk about creating mammoth hybrids when the managers of the site where they will be introduced says: "As for large herbivores – no danger, as they are very easy to remove again."

I won't comment further on the impassioned speech. I get what you're saying, but that's not where I wanted to take the discussion.  But just to make things clear, I'm not saying this project should be cancelled so the money can go to conservation efforts. But I am convinced they're not spending wisely.

Don't play project funding olympics, support all of the projects that have potential to do good, and encourage all of them to continue operating simultaneously.

I find myself disagreeing with this statement. Not all projects with good intentions should be concurrently supported. There's merit to managing and choosing which projects to prioritize.

Sorry for the wall of text. In retrospect, I think this project only left a bad taste in my mouth because asian elephants are involved. I was once part of a zoo project for 2 of them (was - due to the pandemic, they let go of volunteers and non-essentials). The intention was to return both to their native habitat, but neither the Thai government nor related conservation groups would take them (over crowding, lack of sponsors or strict policy to take only "rescues") so both elephants are kept in separate zoos.  There's constant hounding from the public - especially PETA, saying that the elephants should be released to the wild (not knowing that efforts are being exerted constantly to do so, or how challenging that process really is). I can say that we never lacked funds pre-pandemic, the elephants were well supported by donors (I can say most of the sponsors are from the average income groups, only 2 were from multi-million $ industries) so we only had to look for funds to pay the vets and zoo staff.  When the pandemic hit, donations dwindled.  Ugh, I'm rambling. Sorry. All I wanted to say is that I'm aware that stopping glory projects have no effect (positive or negative) on conservation efforts. I'm also intimately aware of how conservation projects get funding.

[stargatedalek]

I don't disagree with any of that, but it does make me wonder if most of the issue is the projects location in Russia? Canada and the US still have a number of regions housing large mammals, including areas that are largely unchanged since the disappearance of woolly mammoths. Not mammoth steppe regions sure, but their range included a lot of other habitats.

That begs another question though, were mammoths inhabitating a broad range of areas, or were they (at least the North American population) inherently migratory? That could make reintroduction extremely difficult, suitable habitat be damned.

[ITdactyl]

Pleistocene Park seems to be the only nature reserve that includes welcoming faux mammoths in their plans.  Even Europe's "The Tauros Programme" wants only faux aurochs.

Asian elephants have a migration range that extends to 50 km. Pleistocene Park's rewilding area is 20 square km. Might be a moot point though because the plan is to fence them in until there's a very large population that can be released.

[Newt]

Given how much pushback and NIMBY-ism there has been in my area against reintroduction of red wolves and wapiti, I can only imagine the pushback against mammoths. I myself don't particularly care to see a mammoth demolishing my garden, uprooting my trees, or blocking traffic on my way to work, so I guess I'm in the NIMBY camp too. Proboscideans can and do wreak havoc in areas where they interact with humans (see the recent movement of a small group of Asian elephants through southern China) and they do not respect park boundaries. I can't imagine folks in the USA going for mammoth introduction, even in sparsely populated areas; while it might be popular enough nationally, local politicians around the reintroduction site would face massive pressure to stop the project. Maybe it would be different in Canada, I don't know. The more top-down Russian government is perhaps a little less responsive to popular opinion, especially if it's only the relatively small number of people in northern Siberia who would initially be affected by the mammoth reintroduction.


On that note, if Pleistocene Park is only 60 square miles, how can it possibly support a viable mammoth population? Even if it were entirely covered in high-productivity grassland that just doesn't seem like enough space for more than a couple of mammoths.

[ITdactyl]

Sorry about that @Newt

Pleistocene park has an area of only 20 square Kilometers, (8 sq. miles).  I misread the 60 sq miles part in the article. That's the range they hope the new "mammoth steppe" will cover.

[Newt]

Oh my...that's tiny. When my state decided to reintroduce wapiti, they chose areas with at least 200,000 acres (809 sq. km) of protected land. Now I'm not a mammalogist, but I suspect pseudo-mammoths (or spammoths, as I will call them from now on) might need more land than overgrown deer to support a viable population. And not snowbound tundra that they'll have to terraform as they go.

[andrewsaurus rex]

a very interesting thread.  While the science fascinates me as well, I really don't see the point of doing this, other than for the pure science of it and perhaps the knowledge gained from it will further genetic research. cloning etc.

If they were really going to bring back an extinct environment with actual woolly mammoths in it, then I would be all for it.  But what they are really doing is making a new breed of elephant, one that has never existed before; like  a new breed of dog.   Like I said, what's the point?  They may look sorta like woolly mammoths, but the won't be woolly mammoths.  And how much they will really look like woolly mammoths is an open question since nobody alive today ever saw an actual woolly mammoth, to be able to say how close the new breed mammoth has come.