http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jul/14/wooly-mammoth-extinct-cloning-dna

It's very tempting, isn't it? A mammoth... and an aurochs.... not to mention things like dodos, moas, and rocs. I would love to see them!

My own feeling, conservationist, naturalist and all, is that extinction is something natural, and we should not try to reverse it. The past few hundred years have seen almost as dramatic a list of extinctions as any time since the demise of the dinosaurs, but this is something which happens from time to time. Maybe it's all part of a natural reduction in the number of species, allowing only the fittest to survive (not that survival of the fittest seems to be a criterion).

I am usually against interference with nature, but in certain cases (the improvement in rice crops for instance) it does seem that we can improve on nature.

I would at the mpment be more concerned with increasing the bee population, and other pollinators, than the cloning of an extinct species, but on the other hand the science derived from such an exercise might be useful in preserving currently endangered species.

If we did clone this mammoth, I assume from the remains found in China, would we just clone the one? Would we later want to breed from it? If so, how? We have - maybe - one set of DNA, which can be replicated and duplicated. But not good for breeding. So would we, after cloning, do an IVF exercise with a few elephants, to see if we can cross-fertilise?

Much easier to stick to bees.

I agree with you, HB, about the bees. Bees worldwide are suffering from potentially catastrophic declines in population but, because they're common, most people don't know or don't care.

I suppose you'd have to clone two mammoths, male and female, to breed them, but it seems an awful lot of effort just to clone one, and it dies, and you're back where you started from. Moas and dodos would probably be a lot easier.

My question in the OP was really whether the efforts to save critically endangered species are worth the effort, or are we trying to stop a runaway train? Generally it is much more important to save habitat, and the species survive with it.

There are a few aspects to consider. Every species lost to the world may be a loss to science in discovering new medicines, I'm thinking of plants mainly here and think it is a different matter to genetic modification of crops to make something that never naturally existed. This argument does infer the primary motivation for bringing back extinct species is based on practical use, I'm not sure what you would use a Mammoth for, but I bet it's tusks would fetch a high price.

On balance I would be in favour of bringing back extinct species, even if no practical use was apparent in so doing, after all unintended benefits of new science often come about, as we witnessed with space exploration.

Sorry duplicate duplicate

Sorry duplicate.

Come again, Dan!