Many people may think that currently the world is doing well in terms of the nature of our planet. Previously in the life of Earth, there have been 5 mass extinctions. A mass extinction is when a large number of species is wiped out in a relatively short period of geological time. Many scientists believe the 6th mass extinction is happening right now with between 30 and 159 species disappearing everyday. Some of the previous extinctions have lasted over a span of millions of years but this time it is sped a lot more thanks to humans. More than 300 types of animals have gone extinct since 1500.
With so many animals going extinct, scientists have been coming up with ways to possibly revive some of these animals. The head subjects of bringing extinct animals back are the wooly mammoth and the passenger pigeon. The wooly mammoth became extinct nearly 4000 years ago and the passenger pigeon became extinct in the year 1900. These animals are not going to be brought back as zoo animals but brought back mainly for ecology. Animals such as the passenger pigeon that lived here very recently, will be brought back so they are back where they used to be in the United States after they were hunted to extinction. These animals will not be an invasive species to the US because they lived here and will bring together the ecosystem that once thrived with passenger pigeons and many other extinct animals. The wooly mammoth was a large animals related to the present-day elephant. This would benefit the northern parts of the northern hemisphere with an amazing animal that once roamed the northern lands and it may also be an extra food source for carnivores that are in need of more food in order to survive.
There have been three main methods for bringing extinct animals back to life. The most popular way of this is cloning. This is the reconstruction of genetic code. When DNA is extracted from an extinct animal, it comes in fragments that must be assembled into a whole genome. Another animal being tested is the thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger. This striped dog-like marsupial became extinct in 1936 with video footage of living specimens from the 1930s. It lived in Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea. There are specimens of the thylacine preserved inside of some museums in Australia. The DNA preserved inside of these specimens just needs to be reconstructed in order for it to be cloned. A way to clone this animal would be to combine the completed DNA of the thylacine with an egg cell of a Tasmanian devil, a relative of the Thylacine.
There are many animals that are extinct that scientists would hopefully someday bring back to existence. Unfortunately, dinosaurs will most likely not be able to be brought back like they were in the book and movie Jurassic Park. With technology advancing quickly especially with the CRISPR-cas9 revolution, we will most likely see extinct animals once again in the next few years. Most(if not all) of these animals became extinct because of humans so bringing them back may be a way to forgive ourselves and think differently about them and try to stop current species from becoming extinct.
Sources:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/deextinction/
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/should-we-bring-extinct-species-back-dead
http://reviverestore.org/passenger-pigeon-workshop/
Genetic Engineering 