After last year’s discovery of the first well-preserved frozen mammoth carcass, a team of scientists in Siberia believes they will be able to clone a woolly mammoth. The mammoth carcass that was found is believed to be 43,000 years old, and was between 50 to 60 years old when it died. The team has been thawing out parts of the mammoth and taking tissue and blood samples, which have been very successful.
The big question here is if it’s right for us to clone an animal that has been extinct for over 4,000 years? If they go through with this they will use a female elephant as a surrogate mother. The results wouldn’t be a 100% clone of a woolly mammoth since an elephant would create it. What kind of advancements would this lead to for cloning such an animal?
I feel it’s a step backwards in advancements if we clone this animal. Sure we are advancing our way of being able to create new life, but it’s from creating an animal that has been extinct for it’s own reasons. I feel like we are devolving instead of evolving by brining back a dead species. How would this mess up our ecosystem? Could this lead to new diseases that this animal might catch? If they do this and it becomes successful could this then lead to a “Jurassic Park” theme park?
There are many pro’s and con’s in deciding to clone such an animal, but it all comes down to who is willing to fund such an experiment and are the scientists up to doing such a thing. We will find out soon.