A story of hope for a Friday evening: de-extinction edition
by David Atkins
This story from the New York Times about the real possibility of bringing back extinct species made me happier than any news item has in some time.
Passenger pigeons, great auks, Carolina parakeets, wooly mammoths are among the millions of species human beings have wiped from the face of the earth. It’s no substitute for environmental measures to reduce the extinction-event calamity we are creating, and there are concerns about both ecological impacts and the potential that reviving extinct species might reduce the impetus to change our ways.
But human beings also need hope, and even if we can only give a few species another shot at life that has to be a good thing.
The photo below is of a Carolina parakeet and a passenger pigeon. We killed them all. All of them. Just looking at them brings tears of sadness and rage to my eyes. But I hope I can live long enough to see one of these beautiful creatures living and breathing again, even if only as a sliver of hope in a world of ecological darkness and destruction.
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