#but yeah this whole situation's crazy stupid. they're really trying to argue semantics with this

[o-wyrmlight]

Okay so first of all: dire wolves cannot be de-extinctioned. They are a part of a genus that went extinct over 10,000 years ago alongside them, and none of the modern members of their subtribe are remotely close enough in relation to re-evolve them. This includes both grey wolves and jackals. Despite what some people may say, dire wolves are the same amount of related to both, which is not nearly close enough to be made from either. So this whole thing about trying to bring them back is nothing more than a publicity stunt for fans of George R.R. Martin's works and other similar fantasy series because it is literally impossible with what we have left of the evolutionary tree.

Secondly. WHAT'S EVEN THE FUCKING POINT OF BRINGING THEM BACK. THEY AREN'T DOGS SO THEY CAN'T BE TAMED AS PETS BECAUSE, GET THIS, DOMESTICATION IS NOT AS SIMPLE AS TRAINING AND TAKES A FUCK TON OF EVOLUTION AND TIME. AND THEY CAN'T BE RELEASED IN THE WILD EITHER. CAN YOU FUCKING IMAGINE? THEIR PREY IS ALL EXTINCT!! THEY'D JUST BE AN INVASIVE SPECIES LITERALLY EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD!! THE ONLY THING YOU COULD DO IS SLAP THEM IN ZOOS AND A) BRINGING A SPECIES BACK TO LIVE AS NOTHING MORE THAN AN ATTRACTION TO BE GAWKED AT IS CRUEL, AND B) THAT TAKES UP SPACES IN ZOOS FOR ACTUAL CONSERVATION WORK AGAINST EXTINCTION.

Thirdly. Why are they putting so much effort into de-extincting animals from the tail end of the ice age instead of, I don't know, animals that have recently gone extinct or are at risk of extinction? They claim to be doing this with the red wolf, but actually they did it with coyotes that have red wolf genes in them instead of an actual red wolf population. Which y'know, not nearly as helpful. And on the recently extinct part, in Spain in 2003, the first ever extinct animal was actually cloned. A pyrenean ibex, which at the time had only been declared extinct three years ago. Granted, the calf did die in minutes due to lung complications, but imagine if more work had been put into making stronger, healthier clones. The species may have been saved in a short enough time span that reintroduction was possible and attainable. But no such work into the pyrenean ibex or any other recently extinct species has been made.

Fourth and last. This entire talk of "de-extinction" when we haven't even truly done that yet does nothing but give politicians and corporations reasons to no longer care about conservation, because now, in their eyes and the eyes of the general public, extinction has been made trivial. The sanctity of actual conservation work is now at risk because people can just go "what's the point of saving them? They can just be brought back later." When that isn't how it works nor how it should be. But the people in charge don't care, they only care about profits. And pretending like we can bring the extinct back from extinction makes conservation work non-profitable. Colossal has potentially fucked over an unknowable amount of species.

And also, this doesn't even begin to tap into my issues with how CRISPR cloning is done in the first place. Ever notice how every cloned animal you hear about has been a mammal? I went onto Wikipedia to find a list of all cloned animals (yeah not the most scientific but it's easy and gets me more information than I could find on my own) and there are three examples of non-mammals being cloned. Ever. One was the xenopus tadpole in 1958, next was the Asian carp in 1963, and lastly was five fruit flies in 2005. That's it. That's every time a non-mammal was cloned. Nevermind that insects are the group of animals that have faced the most extinction in recent times, and have a massive effect on the entire Earth's environment. Not a single bird or reptile, either. All land mammals too; no bats or cetaceans. There's a bias here, and it does reflect in our conversation efforts.

Anyways that's my latest Rant On Things I Have Strong Opinions About. I would probably kill it if I took biotech again.

Colossal supposedly has a study coming that proves that dire wolves are more closely related to grey wolves than we thought. Egg on my face if true, but doesn't change that they didn't make [dire] wolves this time and it doesn't negate the rest of my points. Also, I should say that I don't think they purposely designed the wolves to look exactly like the ones from ASOIAF, but they're definitely leaning into that with all the publicity stuff they're doing with George R.R. Martin. - Garb's Addendum

I feel like there's a movie franchise based on this. About how blatantly immoral it would be regardless of whether they succeeded or not. It has something to do with dinosaurs. Ever heard of it?

Literally all that I could think of reading about this entire situation is that there's a movie for this. It's called Jurassic Park, and it's specifically about the sketchy moral ethics of bringing extinct creatures back to life for human entertainment.