Is the dire wolf back?

You may have seen news in recent weeks about an American company, Colossal Biosciences, proclaiming to have brought dire wolves back from extinction.

The headlines garnered a lot of attention in early April, even gracing the cover of Time Magazine. The hype around this announcement is understandable. This was quite a claim.

But here’s the thing: that’s not what happened.

While I am not a scientist, many folks in the scientific community are quick to point out Colossal Biosciences claim is misleading at best and downright false at worst.

While yes, those at the company did manage to use ancient DNA to birth a trio of pups that closely resemble the some physical characteristics of the dire wolves that walked the earth over 10 millennia ago (an impressive feat to be sure), they essentially only created a hybrid grey wolf.

Without getting too technical, this is for two reasons. The first is that this technique used ancient DNA that has been damaged over time. This left workers at Colossal Biosciences to do their best to fill in the gaps. In short, the starting point was not “pure” dire wolf DNA.

Secondly, in order to create offspring, you need a living mother. Those offspring will inherit at least some of their genes from the creature that birthed them. In this case, that was a grey wolf. Producing live offspring via this method dilutes the dire wolf DNA, even if the DNA introduced was completely original to a dire wolf, which it was not.

As a non-scientist, my most generous interpretation of what occurred in this experiment was an extremely slight reversal of evolution and nothing more. Even that is a stretch because the lineages of the grey wolf and dire wolf diverged millions of years ago, meaning they are not closely related. In fact, some research suggests dire wolves weren’t even wolves at all.

But that doesn’t mean this scientific endeavor isn’t worth discussing and thinking about. It gives those of us who love nature and the outdoors a lot to chew on.

I want to be clear: pushing the boundaries of science is a good thing. It’s what science is all about, really. Consider what’s possible, test your theory, learn, advance. There’s nothing wrong with that.

But this does raise multiple concerns, not the least of which was how this experiment was framed. Now, as a full-time marketer, I can’t fully blame Colossal Biosciences for, shall we say, “embellishing” their results with a flashy headline. Would I be writing this article if they hadn’t come forth with such a bold statement? Almost certainly not. And I’d venture to say the reporters and editors at the hosts of media outlets that covered this story felt the same.

The positioning of the results certainly earned a good amount of media coverage. However, I’d go so far to say the wording of their assertions was morally questionable. I’d even posit many of those working at Colossal Biosciences knew full-well their claim wasn’t true. All of this is disappointing, particularly in a time when trust in science is unrightfully declining.

There is another danger that lurks behind the headlines. It’s the fact that headlines are often the only things people read. That’s a special problem in this context.

It is estimated that hundreds, if not thousands, of living species go extinct each year. On their face, the headlines from the dire wolf story provide false comfort that we are currently in possession of technology that could fix this. That simply isn’t true. We are running the risk that the general public will take extinction events even less seriously than they already do.

Let’s set all that aside for a moment. Let’s say that, even if we can’t bring back a species from extinction today, we are on the path to be able to do so in our lifetimes.

To loosely quote from Jurassic Park, instead of thinking about if we can maybe we need to consider if we should.

Yes, many extinction events have been caused directly or indirectly by humans. Perhaps, at some level, we ought to be responsible for fixing that. But continual interference with nature is not necessarily the solution, particularly if its not thought out properly.

Evolution is a powerful thing. Throughout history, there is one primary reason species cease to exist and that is because nature, however it is constituted at the time, has deemed it unfit for survival. That’s how natural selection works.

Even if we can, someday, bring the dire wolf or any other species back from extinction, would it be able to survive and thrive in the version of nature that exists 10,000 years later? Where would it live? What would it eat? How would it impact current ecosystems?

Constant human expansion presents issues like this for the species we already have. Is adding more the solution? As part of the ecosystem as a whole, are humans ready to do what it takes to accommodate additional species? If not, what quality of life could be expected for species that are brought back from the dead?

While the dire wolf storylines are mostly hype, they sure give us some worthwhile things to think about.