Recent Extinctions Expansion Pack Concept for Planet Zoo

What about extinct species that they have resurrected/ that we have the capability to? For instance, the Pyrenean Ibex was cloned, three years after it's extinction (extinction 2000, cloned in 2003). Cloning technology and methods have come so far since then that it is currently thought that a current cloning attempt would be successful today. However, current ethical dogma is against letting cloned embryos come to term, and since the total preserved genetic material consists of a single female, there is a lot of debate over whether or not they should ever re-attempt it.
Well for this instance I don’t see how that’s better. If theres not enough genetic material to create a population that could function (breed) naturally, then it is not conservation but just a waste of resources.
 
Well for this instance I don’t see how that’s better. If theres not enough genetic material to create a population that could function (breed) naturally, then it is not conservation but just a waste of resources.
That's the argument against cloning. That's also the argue de-extinction in general, and a common argument against conservation for ecologically extinct animals, like American Bison, Sea otter, Spiny Lobster, Guanaco, South Chinese Tigers, and Lesser Rhea to name a few.

Thus I why don't personally accept that argument.
 
It wouldn't be a large pack then as the list of succesfully cloned animals is rather short.
And it would not contain a Pyrenean Ibex, but only a sheep, carps, cats and some rats.
 
It wouldn't be a large pack then as the list of succesfully cloned animals is rather short.
And it would not contain a Pyrenean Ibex, but only a sheep, carps, cats and some rats.
No, it'd be much larger. Unless you meant animals successfully cloned, and born. Pyrenean Ibex was cloned in 2003, but due a birth defect, it died after 11 minutes of life. Asiatic cheetahs have been cloned, but due to current ethical dogma, it was unethical to carry them to viability. Most notably, they cloned a few Southern Gastric Brooding Frogs in 2013, but the embryos died after a few days. They did successfully clone a black footed ferret not that long ago and the Thylacine might be next. They recently announced a full Nuclear Genome, and they are just trying to find out the mitochondrial genome.
 
What is supposed to be unethical about it?
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What is supposed to be unethical about it?


Yeah, Leaf basically hit the nail on the head. With gene editing, and cloning, the whole scientific community undergoing an era of questioning if they should do it. Like, for example, The land that mammoths once roamed is gone. And is now the Siberian forest. So the only room we have for mammoths, is in captivity. Similarly, running on the hypothesis that competition from the Dingo wasn't the main/largest contributing cause to the extinction of Thylacine on Mainland Australia, their niche is now entirely occupied by Dingo and domestic/feral dogs.
For the asiatic cheetahs, only way to keep them would have been in captivity (less than a hundred left in the wild), and there is only a few dozen in semi captivity.
 
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The land that mammoths once roamed is gone. And is now the Siberian forest. So the only room we have for mammoths, is in captivity
There's also a Nature Reserve named Pleistocene Park which is a living Reconstruction of Woolly Mammoths natural Environment and if I remember correctly at least some Scientists that work on cloning them would like to release them there someday


Similarly, running on the hypothesis that competition from the Dingo wasn't the main/largest contributing cause to the extinction of Thylacine on Mainland Australia, their niche is now entirely occupied by Dingo and domestic/feral dogs.
There's still Tasmania😉
Just hope that People there are acting more intelligent when a Species gets released back to the Wild than the People where I live
 
There's also a Nature Reserve named Pleistocene Park which is a living Reconstruction of Woolly Mammoths natural Environment and if I remember correctly at least some Scientists that work on cloning them would like to release them there someday



There's still Tasmania😉
Just hope that People there are acting more intelligent when a Species gets released back to the Wild than the People where I live

True, but those folks are trying to back breed a wooly mammoth via inserting some mammoth DNA into an Asian Elephant egg. One of those guys gave a talk at Oregon State University when I was a student there a few years back. They are still having trouble getting permission to do it, since Asian Elephants are endangered.

Yeah, but there their niche is mostly filled with dogs, and human hunting.

It's not a major ethical thing in the scientific community, but the prevailing sentiment is, why bother unless we can reintroduce them to the wild. Or in the case of the gastric brooding frog, have a significant dollar sign attached.
 
True, but those folks are trying to back breed a wooly mammoth via inserting some mammoth DNA into an Asian Elephant egg. One of those guys gave a talk at Oregon State University when I was a student there a few years back. They are still having trouble getting permission to
I assume this would just be Phase 1?
At least it would make Sense to first create a Organism that is closer to the Original and then use those as Surrogate Mothers one Day instead of normal Elephants.
Also I'm jealous because of the Talk at the University.



Yeah, but there their niche is mostly filled with dogs, and human hunting.
Are there many feral Dogs in Tasmania?
Only know that there are no Dingos on the Island


Or in the case of the gastric brooding frog, have a significant dollar sign attached.
What do you mean?
Was someone paying a lot of Money or something similar to the Reward that will be paid if someone finds a living Thylacine and can prove it and that was the only Motivation? 😟
A Shame considering how far they came with it. Hopefully it will be continued at some Point if it should be possible
 
Ethics are always complicated.

Should you bring back a animal that has most likely died from natural extinction back into a era that is more focused on destroying the environment for the benefits of money?

Personally I wouldnt.

I mean, we are already struggling with many current species, which to me require way more attention.
 
At least it would make Sense to first create a Organism that is closer to the Original and then use those as Surrogate Mothers one Day instead of normal Elephants.


Are there many feral Dogs in Tasmania?
Only know that there are no Dingos on the Island

What do you mean?
Was someone paying a lot of Money or something similar to the Reward that will be paid if someone finds a living Thylacine and can prove it and that was the only Motivation? 😟
A Shame considering how far they came with it. Hopefully it will be continued at some Point if it should be possible
Well, it would a Mammoth-Asian hybrid. Then they have to several F1 together, and F2, and F3. In short it would require a lot of work. They want to use Asian Elephant since that is the Wooly Mammoths closest living relative. But this route would probably take decades to see an organism that looked like a Woolly Mammoth, if not centuries to produce a genetic woolly Mammoth. mean while, need a constant stream of reproductive material from an endangered species that isn't being put to use to ensure the survival of the species.

Since Gastric Brooding Frogs incubated their tadpoles in their stomach, females had a chemical compound that shut off stomach acid production. At one point, it was thought that having that compound could put all other treatments for acid reflux out of business. That is not the case, but having a live frog would lead to a potentially billion dollar drug. Most antacids just neutralize acid, while this would stop the production of excess stomach acid.
 
Ethics are always complicated.

Should you bring back a animal that has most likely died from natural extinction back into a era that is more focused on destroying the environment for the benefits of money?

Personally I wouldnt.

I mean, we are already struggling with many current species, which to me require way more attention.
Define a natural extinction. Because from about 20,000 years ago and on, modern humans have had a hand in most extinctions. Arguably, even as far back as 350,000 years ago, and hominids (Not just modern humans, but also Homo erectus, habilis, and others) have possibly had a similar hand in extinctions, though not to the same extent.
 
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Define a natural extinction. Because from about 20,000 years ago and on, modern humans have had a hand in most extinctions. Arguably, even as far back as 350,000 years ago, and hominids (Not just modern humans, but also Homo erectus, habilis, and others) have possibly had a similar hand in extinctions, though not to the same extent.
True.

I just believe we should put more effort in current species to save.

Edit: but that is not what this thread is about so i'll end my part in this discussion.
 
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They cloned a Przewalski's horse from 40 year old DNA recently and they plan on raising him to adulthood and explore having him reintroduce some genetic diversity in the species as he has genes that have been lost in the modern population.
 
True, but those folks are trying to back breed a wooly mammoth via inserting some mammoth DNA into an Asian Elephant egg. One of those guys gave a talk at Oregon State University when I was a student there a few years back. They are still having trouble getting permission to do it, since Asian Elephants are endangered.
There are plenty of Asian elephants that aren't used in the breeding program though, because of varying reasons, one of them being a too high relatedness to available males.

Those are the elephants that could be used for the mammoth project.
 
There are plenty of Asian elephants that aren't used in the breeding program though, because of varying reasons, one of them being a too high relatedness to available males.

Those are the elephants that could be used for the mammoth project.
They aren't being used currently. And the low success rates found in these sorts of experiments, they need hundreds if not thousands of eggs. So they effectively need to give the donors hysterectomies, plus then coordinate a breeding program of their own with their samples, and new DNA periodically to avoid an inbreeding depression. And raising baby elephants to adulthood in captivity is hard. The odds if dying before turning five is 30%. Even zoos well known for their asian elephant care and breeding program have trouble.

Lily there was six, when what is essentially elephant herpes became active. Almost every Asian elephant in the world has it, and it's just dormant. Poor Lily drew a short straw and it became active when she was still too young for her body to fight it off.
 
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