This new company wants to resurrect the mammoth
Concerns like this are why Lamm thinks that starting with the mammoth makes a lot of sense. “We’re not genetically modifying an insect like a mosquito and releasing it into the wild where we can’t track it,” he says. “Having a species like the mammoth where they are large enough to have radio and different tracking mechanisms on them, if there is an issue, we can always roll it back.
Even if Church proves that mammoths can be mashed up with Asian elephants, it could be a challenge to keep the hybrids from going extinct again, “whether from extreme events, disease, mis-aligned mating behavior, or bad genetics,” Bull explains. Some in the first place include inbreeding, hunting, and warming temperatures. “For precedent, introductions of wild species into new habitats and environments often fail,” Bull writes.But Colossal is intending to play the long game—and learn from the many failures that may come with it. Lamm says he can see the company “working on other species to balance that ecosystem over time,” including possibly introducing a predator to keep the population in check. “But that’s quite a ways off,” he adds.
The startup is aware of the controversial minefield it’s stepping into and plans to continue addressing skepticisms about de-extinction. Its advisory board is stocked with bioethicists, conservationists, animal trafficking researchers, elephant specialists, chemists, and geneticists in preparation. “We want to make sure we’re doing this in the most transparent and ethical way possible,” Lamm says. “We want to have those conversations with the general public.
Assuming that the first generation of the hybrid herd endures, both in the faux womb and the Arctic, “it could easily be more than a century after the first mammoth is born before there is a strong enough population that there is any ecological impact to measure,” Bull writes. “I don’t see the possibility of a negative ecological impact as anything of concern now,” he continues. “It’s too far into the future.”‘s parent company, North Equity, is an investor in Colossal.
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