Fauna-back from the void?

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A life-size model of an adult woolly mammoth and baby are seen at the Brno Museum in Anthropos. — Photo by HTO

WITH the gradual thawing of the Siberian permafrost tundra lands, owing to climate change, thousands of corpses of once frozen and extinct woolly mammoths, with their very long and upturned tusks and long woolly hairs, have been exposed. It is thought that these mammals were pushed northwards into the tundra as early man became more dominant on earth and were gradually hunted down by them. Early cave paintings once revealed their existence. They finally became extinct about 4,000 years ago.

In Irish peat bogs, peat diggers, excavating the peat as a source of fossil fuel, have exposed the preserved remains of Irish elks. These mammals were again driven to extinction some 10,000 years ago, as early man occupied their natural habitats. Irish elks were the largest species of deer in the British Isles, with huge antlers spanning over two metres and bodies of two metres in height.

Like the remains of the woolly mammoths, preserved in the permafrost of the tundra lands, so peat bogs in Ireland preserved the bodies of elks. In both environments anaerobic conditions prevailed, thus there was little bacterial decomposition and the sphagnum moss of the peat bogs also exuded a bactericide.

In Australia, the Tasmanian tiger was hunted down by early colonists in the first couple of decades of the 18th century and thus driven to extinction. Bird species, too, have disappeared. In North America, the Passenger pigeon, which once made up 25 per cent of that continent’s bird population, became extinct 103 years ago.

This fast breeding bird could be seen in the early 19th century in flocks of many millions. The Dodo bird, native to the island of Mauritius was again hunted down to extinction as was the Great Auk, once a common bird in the North Atlantic Ocean, finally giving up its ghost in the 1850s. To date this all makes depressive reading but reader hang on, for the expression, “As dead as a dodo”, may not be in the English language in 20 years’ time or even sooner.

Genetic revolution

George Church, Harvard University Medical School Genetics professor, is the leader of a team of genetic scientists currently working on what they call the Woolly Mammoth Revival. At the February annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), his paper revealed that his team’s research has the possibility to ‘de-extinct’ the woolly mammoth within the next couple of years!

Through the thorough examinations of exhumed mammoth corpses – the result of permafrost melt – his team have collected DNA samples. In so doing, they have identified parts of the mammoth’s DNA that are not seen in DNA samples from our Asian elephants.

These elements are hair and fat. Remember, that to live in Sub-Arctic temperatures, the woolly mammoth needed a long haired coat and a good storage of fat. It was no surprise that most of the mammoth’s DNA was shared with Asian elephants.

Their plan is to use advanced gene editing techniques allowing the addition of mammoth-like traits into the genome of an elephant.

This will be achieved by reprogramming an elephant’s cell to become an embryonic cell. This modified genome is then implanted into the cell and the embryo will be cultivated in an artificial womb. The team’s ultimate aim is to reintroduce the reproduced mammoths into the tundra areas. What mystifies me is, as to what age these new mammoths will be released into the wild and how will they be fed once born? Will they be able to suckle from Asian elephant foster mothers or will they be bottle fed by humans? Will they be gradually exposed to the wilderness of the tundra environment through holding areas to be fed by keepers? I am sure that zoologists will provide the answers.

However, what is clear is that such scientists are able to sequence DNA from an extinct species of fauna that met its void, but only within the last 200,000 years. Russian and South Korean scientists, in collaboration, are working on a similar project to resurrect woolly mammoths but are more secretive about their findings.

Borneo pygmy elephants in Sabah. — Photo by Bernard Dupont

Other fauna

As genetic ‘banks’ of human sperm and ova are stored, for very personal reasons, in many countries and genetic seed banks of many species of flora are kept, so should we not be setting up DNA banks of the genomes of threatened species of fauna? My mind turns instantly to those threatened animals in Southeast Asia, such as the pangolin, the clouded leopard, the Bornean pygmy elephant, the Sumatran rhino and the orangutan, to name but a few, for tomorrow may be too late.

Recreating extinct species

Perhaps, the most convincing argument is that during the last hundred years or more, as our human population has dramatically increased, ecological niches have been exposed through the extinction of our fauna and flora.

Animals, birds, fish and plants have been and still are essential to our local and global ecosystems, wherever we choose to live in the world. Could extinct fauna be brought back to life based on DNA evidence and genetic manipulation to fill the gaps in these ecosystems?

The scientific evidence is before our eyes but perhaps not fully embedded in our brains. We need to preserve our natural environment and conserve it and its contents now and by doing so allow our future generations to appreciate what we saved for their benefit. What our forefathers demolished and hunted, we have tried to restore. What better epitaph?

There are also counter arguments in that extinct species of fauna would not be able to cope in or contemporary environment even if they could be successfully revived.

It can be argued that, even if a newly created ‘mammophant’ is genetically almost like its ancestors, it will have lost its natural tendencies and cultural behavioural patterns and instincts only derived by following those of its natural parents in a generation before.

Whether or not we will see a ‘mammophant’ baby in a few years’ time, it will be through Church’s team’s efforts to achieve a careful genetic engineering of a ‘rebirth’ of an extinct species of mammal. Church and his research team have focussed all of our attentions on the value of all living fauna on our planet. Our desperate need, in the 21st century, is to save, preserve and conserve their natural habitats.

What his Harvard team are attempting to achieve, he has declared as the biological version of the Apollo 11, 1969 mission, to the moon. Upon its landing, the astronaut Neil Armstrong when he left the capsule said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” What Church did not say was, “This is a small step for mankind and a giant step for the past and present and the future of fauna of our world.”

We will eagerly await the outcome of this research.

Pangolins are severely threatened in Southeast Asia. — Photo by Wildlife Alliance