none of them. would seriously affect the world's current ecosystems. they'd find their equilibrium, but we may not be happy with the results.
The passenger pigeon, Carolina parakeet and the eskimo curlew, three U.S. birds that have gone extinct in the last 100 years.
My thinking is that we should start with some serious efforts to bring back populations of animals on the verge right now. Clone off a few thousand tigers and ****... Then let's bring out some mammoths, a few dinos, maybe that gigantic shark that would've made a great white look like a tadpole. I like them all. And how about those giant mosquitos...that would rock.
It disgusts me to think scientists would waste $10 million on bringing back a wooly mammoth, which has no habitat in which to dwell naturally. It would be solely a curiosity, and a zoo animal. What kind of life would it have? Why not bring back those species which were forced into extinction by the activities of mankind, and which do fit into the natural ecosystem, like the Carolina parakeet? No parrot-like birds have existed in the U.S. since humans wiped out the Carolina parakeets, so there is still a niche for them in which to live. Monk parakeets, an introduced species, are doing well in some areas, but haven't spread all over the U.S. yet.
I saw a couple of parrots at the Pickle campus Monday and after giving it a google determined that they were monk parakeets, also known as quaker parrots. Pretty freaky.
Yeah, I've seen flocks of non-native parrots on Austin-area golf courses. They sure are noisy buggers.
Yes, monk parakeets, a member of the parrot family, are spreading around Texas and some other areas, and are doing well in Austin. They build large stick nests in light standards at ball fields and other places. In the McAllen area, there are flocks of red-crowned parrots and green parakeets, but are probably locally established flocks of escaped birds from the Mexico illegal pet trade markets. The ivory-billed woodpecker would be a species many bird watchers would like to see brought back, as well.
Can't be dinos, we can't recover enough of their DNA to clone them. I agree that it should be highly endangered species and once that we wiped out. There are lots of animals that humans have recently killed off that could still be viable if we had the type of regulations we do now.
16 years at -20 is pretty impressive, but remember those conditions were consistent and well maintained. If you look at the DNA of a mummy from a couple thousand years ago or a dinosaur from prehistoric times, you will see why cloning such things may be much more difficult. The DNA is nicked, broken and rearranged. Recovery of all the pieces including single bases from samples would be nearly impossible. If it were to happen, it would have to be from different technology. The samples would have to be sequenced and then compared to a close living relative (Jurassic Park was right). Then, synthetic oligos would have to be constructed. Or working in reverse, DNA from closely related living species would have to be modified to match the sequenced prehistoric DNA. Personally, I think the reverse approach is more feasible with the current state of the art.
