Elizabeth Hale - Bringing the Wooly Mammoth Back

Elizabeth Hale - Bringing the Wooly Mammoth Back

by Deleted user -
Number of replies: 3

Wooly mammoths are an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the ice age and had a thick, furry coat that protected against the extreme cold. They went extinct about 4,000 years ago but technology and research today has been talking about bringing the wooly mammoth back. In 2013, a team found almost an entire woolly mammoth in the permafrost of Siberia. With the help of carbon dating, they found out that the wooly mammoth lived over 40,000 years ago (Pruitt). Scientists extracted a DNA sample from the blood of the woolly mammoth that was oozing out in order to use gene splicing to create a mammoth-elephant hybrid. Then they used CRISPR to isolate specific genes and then integrate it into the DNA closest living relative to the wooly mammoth, an Asian Elephant (Pruitt).

A huge reason why scientists want to bring back wooly mammoths is because of their ability to potentially combat global warming (Pruitt). Pual Mann from the Smithsonian Magazine explains that wooly mammoths, “[c]ould help stop the release of greenhouse gases from the ground and reduce future emissions as temperatures rise due to climate change” (Mann). Bringing mammoths back and integrating them into our environment would be beneficial because they would stomp on the land resulting in the ground staying cooler for longer because grass absorbs less heat and it would keep the carbon pools and their greenhouse gases on ice for longer (Mann).  

If this does happen, I see this going 2 ways. It could be very beneficial to our ecosystem and combat global warming or it could go very badly. How can we expect wooly mammoths to come back onto this earth and easily adapt? Are they adaptable animals? How would they react if they saw a human? Is the earth too hot for them now to be comfortable? If we can successfully do this for the wooly mammoths then I believe we can do it for some species that are extinct but definitely not all. We can’t do it for all because some won’t easily adapt like in Jurassic Park. 


Mann, P. (2018, May 14). Can Bringing Back Mammoths Help Stop Climate Change? 

     Retrieved from 

     https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-bringing-back-mammoths-stop-climate-change-180969072/ 


Pruitt, S. (2019, January 22). Are Scientists on the Verge of Resurrecting the Woolly 

     Mammoth? Retrieved from 

     https://www.history.com/news/wooly-mammoth-resurrection-cloning-genesis 


       




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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Elizabeth Hale - Bringing the Wooly Mammoth Back

by Deleted user -
Hey Elizabeth! I think you did a fantastic job of describing the information on the way that bringing back the woolly mammoth can be useful and how it can be a disadvantage. I also think that it is possible to bring back an extinct species that is very cool in many ways. I also believe that woolly mammoths can help combat global warming by exposing the ground to cold winter air that keeps the permafrost frozen and does not let the greenhouse gases out. I also agree with the questions you asked in the last paragraph about how they can affect the environment or how they would be affected by today’s world. This is very interesting to wonder about because the world has dramatically changed since they went extinct. I do agree with your last statement that if we can successfully do this for the mammoth, then we could do it for other species, but it thinks before we do it, we need to consider the benefits and cost of bringing the species.

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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Elizabeth Hale - Bringing the Wooly Mammoth Back

by Deleted user -
Hi Elizabeth! I really enjoyed your forum post because a lot of it had overlap with the things I said. My favorite part of your post was the questions you asked because I had not considered quite a few of them. The most simple question being how would these woolly mammoths react to seeing humans and also is the Earth too hot for them now? I think woolly mammoth human reaction is only something that would have to be tested through actual exposure and I’m sure with our advanced technology the temperature from prehistoric times could be compared to now. I also liked your inclusion of Jurassic Park, it made me laugh. Overall, like you said, implementing other extinct species is something that scientists need to weigh the pros and cons especially in the midst of pandemics like now.

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In reply to Deleted user

Re: Elizabeth Hale - Bringing the Wooly Mammoth Back

by Deleted user -
Hey Elizabeth,

You did a great job on this post! I agree with everything you say on this post and you make some great points. I especially agree with the statement that this revival could either be really good or really bad. I believe that there is a delicate balance in the ecosystem and bringing in another variable could completely mess it up but it could also really help global warming which is why I think people are having a difficult time with this experiment. I do think that the mammoths would have a difficult time adapting to a world 40,000 years later and way different from when they left it. Do you think that they would have any predators or do you think that their population would become out of control?

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