Humans' destructive habit of overconsumption has disrupted and even ended the lives of entire species permanently. As is common knowledge, extinction is irreversible... or is it? This is the question de-extinction biologist and activist Stewart Brand explores in his TED Talk presentation, "The Dawn of De-Extinction."
All animals, especially birds, have been subjected to humans' hunting and pollution, leading to decreased population and, eventually, extinction. In just two years, spanning 1914 and 1916, both the passenger pigeon (formerly the most abundant bird in the country) and the Carolina parakeet went extinct. While extinction is considered definite, Stewart Brand, a de-extinction biologist and self-proclaimed passenger pigeon enthusiast, thinks otherwise. A way to bring such creatures back, he says, is to extract DNA samples from extinct animals in field museums and plant it in an evolutionary descendant of that animal. It is a possibility for the older genes to dominate the newer ones, and for a once living species to be born from a more modern one. A success case of this procedure includes the bucardo, who was born from a regular goat. While the baby bucardo only lived a few hours, it served as proof to the scientific community that de-extinction is, in fact, possible.
As for my personal reaction, if this video triggers anything emotionally for me, it is hope. All we ever hear about the concept of extinction is the finality of it, but now that may no longer hold true, and I think that's fantastic. As Stewart Brand states in his speech, "Humans have made a huge hole in nature in the last 10,000 years. We have the ability now, and maybe the moral obligation, to repair some of the damage." I agree with him wholeheartedly. Most animal species have been on this planet longer than we have, so who are we to deny them a chance at life? De-extinction biology should be explored to its fullest potential, because with it we can begin to patch the biologic holes throughout history.
