The dodo is a prime candidate for de-extinction. Once native to Mauritius (and only Mauritius), the large, flightless bird died out in the 17th century after humans settled on the island. On top of the widespread destruction of its habitat, the dodo was further threatened by pigs, cats and monkeys that sailors brought with them.
A team led by Beth Shapiro, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has sequenced the dodo genome from a museum specimen in Copenhagen. In theory, a dodo-like bird could be created by editing the Nicobar pigeon genome to contain dodo DNA, but, as with all de-extinction projects, creating the animal is not enough: there has to be a habitat for it to thrive in, or the exercise becomes pointless.
“I think it’s crucial that, as we prioritise species and ecosystems for protection, we do so while considering what our planet will be like 50 or 100 years from now, rather than imagining that we can somehow turn back the clock and re-establish ecosystems of the past,” Shapiro says.
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