A non-fiction about the concept of cloning extinct animals back into existence. Let's dive in!
As said before, Kornfeldt highlights several projects in this book of people trying to "clone" several extinct creatures such as mammoths, aurochs and passenger pigeons back into existence. The book discusses these projects at lengths, as well as the various ways of "re-creating" extinct species in the current day. The ethics of the situations are also highlighted as this is a divisive subject with a lot of protractors and detractors who are all very outspoken.
Overall this was a really good book on the subject. I was personally a bit sad that my personal favorite animal, the thylacine, wasn't brought up here, but that won't factor into my rating, of course.
I put the terms "clone" and "re-creating" in quotes because this book does a good job explaining the various ways of going about these projects. The ones trying to "clone" mammoths back in reality aren't really cloning them, as they're not trying to create a one-by-one genetic copy of a single dead animal. Rather, they're trying to complete the genome based on an old mammoth, but that obviously doesn't mean that the animal that would result from this would be a clone.
Also, there's various ways to "re-create" the species. For example, the idea of altering existing species to fill the same ecological niche that mammoths once held is brought up. If, instead of bringing back mammoths, we altered Asian elephants to have long coats and be able to withstand cold temperatures and fill the same ecological gap mammoths once occupied, couldn't these already be considered semi-mammoths?
The book highlights questions such as these, and of course the ethics of possibly releasing these re-created species into the wild. That wouldn't go without a hitch, and even if they do succeed, there's still the question of whether or not it'll go well. Trying to restore nature is a noble cause, but is there even still a room in today's ecology for some of these species, especially the ones that have been gone for several thousand years? And what if it all goes wrong, such as the introduction of invasive species to certain areas that have done a lot of damage?
The book covers all these topics and tries to answer some of the questions, while giving plenty of backstory but not outright forcing the reader to pick a side. I will say that the author does seem to lean more towards being pro-bringing back extinct species, but that doesn't mean the reader has to be. The author just gathered facts of both pro and detractors (though definitely more of the former) and allows the reader to make their own conclusions, rather than trying to convince them outright, which I appreciate.
I also like how they brought up the Oostvaardersplassen, a nature location in the Netherlands that went somewhat "wrong" in that, despite the animals there having free reign and being wild, there are now so many of them that a lot of them have to be shot before winter each year in order to prevent mass starvation in said season. There's simply too many of these animals and not enough predators, meaning that they're pretty much too successful. And they cannot leave the this part of nature. Shooting perfectly healthy animals seems cruel, but when you consider that the other option is a huge portion of the critters' population slowly starving to death in winter due to a lack of food maybe it is the more humane option.
The Oostvaardersplassen look pretty in concept, with ancient-looking animals like Heck cattle, Konik horses and a lot of deer. But it's also a closed-off area with no large predators so despite the animals being in a habitat without humans in a scenario close to how things were before we humans took over, it's still far from perfect due to the animals producing young yearly and not being able to come and go as they please.
Overall I think the book highlights the concepts of bringing back the old animals, or altering current ones to fit the niche the old ones did, very well. I could've done with a little bit more chapters about the detractors point of view, just to event things out a bit, but I'm very happy with what I read here.
Where do I stand on the issue? I'm mostly neutral. I'd like to see certain animals brought back (such as my favorite, the thylacine), but the issue of actually releasing many of them into a very changed modern ecosystem is a whole different story. And of course there's also the matter of, even if they are successfully brought back and re-introduced into the wild without upsetting the ecosystems, what other people's response will be. There's already plenty of detractors, and I definitely think that poaching for these rare once-extinct animals will be something that'll be on the rise should be release a large population of them. So it's a very gray matter that must be looked at through various points of view. For now, I'd first like to see them actually re-create something extinct that's healthy. What we do from there remains to be seen.
Rating: 4/5
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