Extinct Ibex Resurrected by Cloning… then Goes Extinct Again
Scientists succeeded for the first time in achieving the holy grail of conservation: bringing to life an extinct animal through cloning. For seven minutes.
Just seven minutes after Spanish and French scientists brought the Pyrenean ibex back from extinction, the young animal died of lung complications also common to other cloned animals. And so an extinct species blinked into life for an instant and then flickered out again.
The success, albeit brief, is spurring scientists and conservationists alike to imagine some wild possibilities. Can extinct species–say, the dodo or even the wooly mammoth–be brought back into their natural habitats through cloning and if so should they?
