An NBC news story caught my eye this week. It seems some Russians have moved beyond the planning stage and are building a “Pleistocene Park”. They have introduced many of the fauna and would like to add Woolly Mammoths. What a wonderful and interesting idea!
When I was in Graduate school, Rob Bonnichsen brought the Center for the First American’s to Oregon State. I remember spending a few afternoons and evenings talking about visualizing the environment of what he called Beringia. This was the landscape exposed between the glaciers during the last ice age linking Asia and North America. This was the mammoth steppe, which served as a pathway for megafaunal exchange between the two continents. He mentioned that it was thought to be very similar to some parts of northern Siberia.
I read a book on the discovery of a steppe bison in Alaska in 1979. It seems that another was discovered in 2012. These animals have been dead for an estimated 36,000 years, yet they are somewhat intact. The Woolly Mammoth went extinct a mere 4,000 years ago; so perhaps a more intact body could be found. Well that may have happened. This story from 2014 indicates that an exposed Mammoth carcass still had blood inside its tissues.
If that is the case, then there is little doubt that intact DNA from a single individual could be extracted. However it seems that scientists are using CRISPR, the genome editing tool, to create their own Mammoth DNA. And the Russians are ready give the newly resurrected animals room to grow.
I think that park a wonderful idea and I would love to visit it. I would love to see the animals the proto-Americans followed onto the continent. I can imagine walking the tundra with Mammoths and Bison. Hearing them call to each other, clouds of buffalo flies swarming over them. Perhaps even seeing wolves test the herds.
It would be even better to enjoy a steak from a Mammoth killed by a stone tipped lance and cooked over a camp fire, kindled from native woods, under the midnight sun of the far north.
I don’t imagine that I would ever be able to afford the trip, and if I could, would I be physically fit enough. But, oh what a dream!
It wouldn’t be the world of the cave men it would be similar to Stone Age America before the horse. At least until they brought back the steppe bison, the American lion and the short-faced bear. Then we would have a very interesting experience.
However, I admit to some doubts. Nature is much more complicated than humans expect. Nutritionists are starting to recognize that symbiotic bacteria in the gut play an important role in weight maintenance. And medical doctors are finding surprising connections between gut bacteria and health. There are even indications that the occurrence of some cancers is a function of the population balance in the gut.
The baby mammoth will inherit gut bacteria from its surrogate Asian elephant mother, but are they the right ones for life on the tundra? Its unclear if they would even be able to digest arctic foods. So it may be easier to create the animal than it is to create the community that keeps its body alive.
But what if they can bring back a healthy Mammoth?
Consider another facet to this topic; think about the prospect of genetic recovery in general for a moment…
If scientists can recreate a Woolly Mammoth then they certainly shouldn’t have any problems with genetically simpler modern creatures alive today. And if that’s the case, there is no longer a justification for the Endangered Species Act. If a species disappears, and we so choose, we just bring it back. I imagine that will give future generations a debate topic.