I've read a few other articles about de-extinction, mostly to do with the mammoth (which is not what this article focuses on, other readers!), so it's cool to see that other efforts are being made on behalf of various other species. The article didn't discuss it, but I'm interested in finding out how these scientists account for the how revived species might interact with urban sprawl or hell, even increased traffic and various kinds of pollution, like light and sound.
Yes, I mostly shared it because of the passenger pigeon stuff. The collapse of the passenger pigeon has really fascinated me ever since I first learned of it. 30 years. 5 billion animals to zero. That's a murder rate of almost unimaginable proportion. Half a million birds per day, on average. It doesn't even make sense. I'm a bit of a pessimist about species revival, because there's a lot more to a species than it's DNA (many other biomolecules, "culture", etc.). What we might achieve is some kind of hybrid, frankenstein animal, which isn't the thing itself. I don't really know if I agree with the wisdom of these projects, although I would be first in line to see a mammoth in person.
Yeah, I mean, the only reason the Rocky Mountain locust went extinct is because of extreme vulnerability in their larval stage. Between American bison, passenger pigeons, Rocky Mountain locusts and indigenous peoples, I'd say that the US is pretty well-defined by the human capacity for killing stuff. As for the prospect of chimeras, I can only hope that if such animals do become viable, those responsible for creating them will take the time to really try to understand possible repercussions of releasing them into the wild. I'm sure that they know better than me about ecological systems, but complex adaptive systems are hard to predict. But yeah, I'd totally go see a mammoth.
No problem; I always really liked that article and especially that its points out the over-reliance on corn, wheat and rice. I know that North America's landscape is still relatively wild compared to say, Europe, but learning about animals like this locust really makes me wonder just how wild this place was at one time and how the various waves of settlers must have felt as they encountered the vastness of the continent and its flora and fauna.