Should the Wooly Mammoth Live Again?

Should we be cloning Wooly Mammoths?

  • No, They died for a reason.

    Votes: 73 28.5%
  • Yes, we could learn a lot from studying a live one.

    Votes: 117 45.7%
  • No, Momma elephant doesn't want a hairy kid.

    Votes: 8 3.1%
  • Yes, I want my own pet Wolly.

    Votes: 48 18.8%
  • Beats me, what is a wolly mammoth?

    Votes: 10 3.9%

  • Total voters
    256
Yes, playing with fire. The next thing we know they'll be cloneing knuckle-dragging troglodites and there are enough of them running around as it is!
 
yeah i am planing on useing mammoth hide for a platter mat on out marantz. mammoth fur will also make a great room treatment. then there is the meat :banana: oh yeah and lots of it. lets bring em back. then lets hunt em out of existance again.:smoke:
 
Oooops,
We didn't know that the Wooly Mammoth carried a disease that we've never seen before that is fatal to humans....:yikes:
 
I'm not too worried about a huge animal that rarely and slowly reproduces somehow escaping a lab environment and then somehow succeeding to spread with no gene variation while its better-suited relatives are dying off. Go for it. There isn't ever going to be DNA available from long extinct species for the most part, so I don't think there's any reason to worry about the "where does it stop" issue.
 
Yes, playing with fire. The next thing we know they'll be cloneing knuckle-dragging troglodites and there are enough of them running around as it is!

If they bring back the female kind that you can grab by the hair, drag into a cave, and have your way with...and then they're loyal for life... I won't object. :D

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Seriously, I think if they can do this, they should. We could learn a lot from such an example, and it would be much safer than even a lot of the genetic manipulation they are already engaging in now. The Woolly (NOT "Wolly", by the way) mammoth is not an experimental creature being concocted in a lab; it is an actual creature that existed, and not that long ago. It existed alongside early man, in a world with an atmosphere similar to today's, albeit in colder (Ice Age) zones, where its long wool coat was a necessity. Keep these somewhere cold (Northern Canada? In a giant air-conditioned place?), and they should be fine.

The experiments with "roundup ready" food crops are far, far scarier than this idea. Jurassic Park was a deeply flawed bit of Hollyweird fiction, and the reality in this case is completely different. This is a worthy scientific endeavor, and a very "cool" one at that. I say GO FOR IT!

BUT! If they are going to do this, they should aim to clone a number of different animals and breed them, not just make one lonely individual. They should plan ahead to have reserves where they can breed and live out full lives. I don't think we should (re)create creatures just as "lab rat" specimens, if they are going to have rough lives. Elephants are highly intelligent creatures which exhibit clear signs of complex emotions and social mores, and I assume Mammoths were the same. We should respect that, and give them a chance at "good" lives even as we study them, not mere existence.

That also raises another set of questions, though. Elephants have learned survival patterns that are passed on from one generation to the next. In Africa, herd elders pass on knowledge of where water holes stay wet during droughts, of plants to eat and ones to avoid at certain times of year, and many other things that are not instinctive. How do these creatures develop such knowledge in the first place? They are somewhat migratory, too; how can we guarantee them a large enough area to live in, if they need to migrate with seasons? What does their presence do to the vegetation and other flora and fauna of a region that hasn't seen them in thousands of years? (i.e., what is their environmental impact?) A lot of such things should be considered and worked out, before we actually bring them back into existence. But these things CAN be satisfactorily worked out, even if it involves some compromises; life and such living creatures are somewhat flexible and adaptable (within reason).

We once had huge numbers of bison in large areas; today we have only relatively small herds of bison in limited areas, but they do fine and have stable populations and live decent lives. Why not something similar for mammoths? It wasn't only climate change or sabertooths that wiped out the mammoths; early hunting man had a lot to do with it, too, just hunters almost wiped out the bison more recently. Here is a chance to undo something that perhaps we shouldn't have done in the first place (?).

I think we SHOULD do this, if we can. Let's just do it intelligently.
 
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Ii''m sure not gonna argue your altered food stuff Arkay... that stuff does scare me bad..

And yeah.. .I speeld that wrong :p:
 
Their mammoths - however many they make - will all come from a single (or very small number of) gene sources. That will make them very intolerant of environmental pressures, and unlikely that a large self-sustaining population could ever result. But to further understanding of how DNA and ontogeny work, I think it is a very valuable & worthwhile experiment.
 
I had to choose option five, because I don't know what a "wolly mammoth" is. :D :D :D

(No, I didn't go back and fix the post because I can't count. That is your imagination, and you should pay it no mind!)

I do think it would be interesting to see what happens, but at the same time I worry about the unintended consequences of reviving something that has been extinct for a long time.
 
This kind of reminds me of the Large Hadron Collider debate. They just don't let any old schmo become a scientist. Just to get any funding to start with you have to be reputable. They will probably do a small experiment in a highly controlled environment and we will learn tons and tons about DNA. This is nothing but win.

I work with scientists. I'm a lab assistant at UF/IFAS. They're so anal, critical and self deprecating that a project along these lines would be handled very slowly, carefully and seriously.

Just watch out for cats
embryoz2.jpg
 
IMO, the resurrection of wooly mammoths is not a problem.
It is pretty hard to lose one.

What concerns me is the creation of genetic monsters (i.e. microorganisms and plant seeds) which we have no control over after they are released into the environment.
 
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