Looking Beyond “De-extinction” to Protect Biodiversity
April 14, 2025
A biotechnology company claims to have “successfully de-extincted” prehistoric dire wolves, CNN reports. But in Issues, the zoologist John O’Brien questions this approach to protecting the planet’s biodiversity. “Resurrecting an extinct species is pointless,” he agues, “if the habitat in which it lived has disappeared and the factors that caused its demise have not been resolved.” More promising, he writes, conservation biologists and citizens alike can draw on a growing array of novel tools—drawn from engineering, information technology, agriculture, medicine, robotics, mathematics, food science, and architecture—to tackle the multiple threats faced by habitats and the life they harbor.