This video appeared on National Geographic’s Magazine’s Twitter feed. It said: : Can the American passenger pigeon be resurrected? See how it could be done: http://on.natgeo.com/15OUp1i 

De-extinction is a new term for to me but this week a TEDx conference hosted by National Geographic focused completely on this concept on the possibility of reviving formerly extinct species. Just because we think we can bring back a lost species, does that mean we should?  What would be the benefits?  Disadvantages? 

I’ve read enough about passenger pigeons to know that beyond overhunting, the species went extinct as large swaths of North American forests became fragmented and modified.  While we may be able to theoretically bring back a species, we cannot rewind the clock and bring all the essential ingredients to their former ecosystem that allowed them to thrive in the first place.  De-extinction would NOT be repairing the world so that it was as if the extinction never happened, since other species in the ecosystem have adapted to their absence. Given the length of their absence, could these be considered “invasive species?”     

Tags: biogeography, environment, National Geographic, environment modify, ecology, historical, TED.

See on twitter.com