Should Extinct Animals be Resurrected if Ever Possible?

[Rukentuts]

Only the cool ones that won't reck the environment or us.

The thing is, people tend not to know what will wreck the environment until it has. Look at farmers using asian lady beetles introduced to eat aphids off of soybeans. They saw they did an amazing job, they just had no natural predators. Now they're fucking everywhere.

[Ilikegreenfire]

Depends on the species, if humanity killed them off(at least recently) we should try and reintroduce them to their habitat. Anything else should probably be confined to zoos/parks.

[Barnabas]

No they died off and should remain that way. They served their purpose in the evolution of species and would serve no good purpose being brought back.

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Depends on the species, if humanity killed them off(at least recently) we should try and reintroduce them to their habitat. Anything else should probably be confined to zoos/parks.

So because humans made some animal extinct, out of pity, we should go through a lot of effort to reintroduce? Are you altruistic persona or just nuts?

[Tyderi]

Domesticate mammoths for meat!

[wowaccounttom]

sure.. humanity could use a nice purging.. the earth is suffering because of the constant pollution and resource overuse

[zoomgpally]

That depends. Some species have gone extinct recently so the environment still exists for them. And others like the dodo shouldn't ever be released in the wild if they were resurrected as humans would just kill them again. But they could be placed in special sanctuaries under care and watch.

The recent ones, if caused by humanity, would be fine.
Anything else should be kept in zoos only, to avoid damaging the ecosystem.

[mickybrighteyes]

I view this like I view class builds in WoW... many of them died for a reason. Best not dwell on brining them back without looking at why things turned out the way they did... and i mean most than just the simple who/what/when/why.

[Heathy]

sure.. humanity could use a nice purging.. the earth is suffering because of the constant pollution and resource overuse

although i know you probably won't reply to this you just like posting random shit and disappearing like a fart in the wind, if there is no one around to appreciate the earth it becomes irrelevant, even though pollution is a problem, its a problem for the things that live here, not for the earth itself, it doesn't have the capacity to care. its a ball of rock floating through a vacuum. and resource over use is a logistical problem, not a 'we might aswell all curl up and die now' type of problem. the earth itself isn't a living entity that can 'suffer'. it doesn't feel pain when you extract bits of it, thats just crazy talk.

nice troll post though i give it a 5/10 for one line stealth flamebait.

[Violent]

Couple things..

1. Jurassic park so you know... nothing that has teeth that cut through metal, can camo its skin and eat you, or shit is just as big as a building (the books had genetically modified dinos with camo carnosaurs or something like that, and raptors whos teeth cut through metal.).

2. Yes animals we erradicated due to neglegance. But.... if they get wiped out again by predators well..... sucks to suck

Uhhh.. Just so you know, the Hyena has a bite force of 1,100 psi.. That's enough to go through (not so thick) bones & metal.

NOT TO MENTION.. Saltwater Crocodiles have a bite force of 3,700 psi.

Just an FYI.

[shadowmouse]

My initial reaction was in line with many of the posts here -- that it would be impractical to bring them back and they'd be unlikely to be more than zoo novelties. As a counter argument, however, there is the possibility that bringing them back would give us the opportunity to study various biological processes and problems. Would that necessarily have a benefit? Who knows, but simply the work involved in bringing back an extinct creature would probably give us a better understand of the process. Just as the space program has had benefits for us, perhaps the work of reviving a species would have medical benefits outside of that project.

[Ilikegreenfire]

No they died off and should remain that way. They served their purpose in the evolution of species and would serve no good purpose being brought back.

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So because humans made some animal extinct, out of pity, we should go through a lot of effort to reintroduce? Are you altruistic persona or just nuts?

I have a few reasons other then pity. 1 biodiversity. When feasible reintroducing species to certain areas can help to promote stability. In many places in the US coyotes are the only big predator or there are none at all. Bringing a few species back can help give them some competition and or help control prey populations.

Also i am the kind of guy that believes you should fix what you screw up, if we can fix what we broke why shouldn't we try? And then there is just the whole preservation of species thing. I want future generations to be able to see cool animals like cougars, wolves, or even thylacine out in the wild.

[Deianeira]

You found one situation where it was determined that it would be good. To bring back something as pointless as the Dodo bird would not have the same effect. Introducing a predator like the wolf helps the ecosystem by fighting overpopulation, which leads to starvation and in-species competition that could lead to their extinction anyway. Introducing something like the Dodo bird just for shits and giggles would be completely pointless and would likely lead to negative consequences.

Also wolves were hunted because we were their predator. At which point we were playing nature. That's how shit works. If you're not the top of the chain in your ecosystem, you will be hunted. Humans just had the means to hunt them to very low levels because we had means to travel and hunt many different species at once.

The big difference between us and other predators is that we are the only one that dont only hunt for our survival but rather for pleasure/profit

[Xar226]

I'm going with no. I don't see any way we can be fully aware of the consequences of it. We may well introduce animals that wipe out other animals, even ones who initially "won" an evolutionary struggle, or wipe out plants or destroy trees or do some other irreparable harm to their habitats that impact us or their habitat-mates. And for what benefit? Novelty? Guilt? Not worth it.

[Wewlad]

Their destruction? You're using some interesting pseudoscience to say that they were massacred. Most scientific finds via fossils and records indicate that the Dodo was already rare or nearing extinction before humans ever inhabited the islands in any real manner. Their island was also home to other prey that the humans that were there would have also hunted for food. The dodo became extinct likely due to a combination of humans (because dodos never feared humans, thus wouldn't instinctively run) and due to other animals/natural events. The dodo has no place in any ecosystem because it did not know to fear predators. If reintroduced, it would die off again due to another predator.

To deny what has been known for quite some time is just asinine.

[zealo]

Do you guys know what happened when China in the 60s decided to shoot all the sparrows?

That if anything is proof of how introducing and removing just 1 animal from the balance in nature can have widespread consequences. If we are to reintroduce species it needs to happen in a controlled and calculated manner.

[RicardoZ]

If there's some kind of use for them, sure I don't see why not.

[Tokru]

I'm going with no. I don't see any way we can be fully aware of the consequences of it. We may well introduce animals that wipe out other animals, even ones who initially "won" an evolutionary struggle, or wipe out plants or destroy trees or do some other irreparable harm to their habitats that impact us or their habitat-mates. And for what benefit? Novelty? Guilt? Not worth it.

Therefore just keep them locked up in a zoo. No chance of wiping out other species.

[vaeevictiss]

I say no, they are dead for a reason and it needs to be left that way. Especially if they were killed off by man/poaching. let it stand for a pillar of conservation and what humanity can do to a species. If you can just bring them back then there will be no value in, or respect for the existence of the species. I'm willing to bet that the white rhino will be the next, and for what, so some dirty chinks can make some figurines out of the ivory and sell them on the corner of some slum in China?

The story that got to me most recently was that of Lonesome George and more specifically what is written on his memorial:

”Whatever happens to this single animal, let him always remind us that the fate of all living things on Earth is in human hands.”

no point in trying to resurrect the past when you can conserve the future. Support groups that try and help that. One i recently found was VETPAW (http://vetpaw.org/). Being a veteran myself it was something i could easily support.


EDIT: and all these people that say to bring them back just to stick in a zoo is bullshit. I really hate the idea of zoos, but i know they are normally to try and help animals with problems that could prevent them from living in the wild. Taking perfectly healthy and self sufficient animals out of the wild to stick them in a cage...why don't you just cut the fucking wings off a bald eagle.

[Ave07]

No

Imagine bringing back a wooly mammoth today. It would suffer because of climate change.

Another example are the rhinos poachers have been killing off. Bringing those rhinos back would lead to them being killed off again.

[PBitt]

As cool as it might be, there are a lot of things that must be taken into consideration, and 'wtf are they going to eat' and 'where are they going to live' are chief among them. There is a difference between something that went extinct 20 years ago and 20,000 years ago, sure, but this just doesn't seem feasible for anything that requires a totally different ecosystem to survive, like the dinosaurs did. There is also a difference between keeping something monitored in captivity vs re-introducing them into the wild.

That being said, I do believe it's possible (for some species anyways) but it will take years of research and trial and error, and not to mention a lot of money. Seeing as we don't even fully understand all of our own present-day ecosystem yet, I think it will be a long time before this even becomes a feasible option to dump money into.