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Dead as a dodo? The unsettling bid to bring back extinct species
We should focus on conserving endangered animals rather than resurrecting those already gone
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The last dodo is thought to have been hunted in the 1660s.
PHOTO: COLOSSAL LABORATORIES & BIOSCIENCES
Anjana Ahuja
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Portuguese sailors first spied the creature in Mauritius in the early 16th century and reportedly named it “doudo”, meaning fool. The trusting, tubby, flightless bird became a sitting duck for hunters and easy prey for introduced species such as cats and dogs.
The last dodo is thought to have been hunted in the 1660s. Now, scientists want to bring it back. Colossal Biosciences, a United States genetics start-up that describes itself as a “de-extinction company” and which is already targeting the woolly mammoth and Tasmanian tiger, said on Tuesday it would try to revive the defunct species through genome editing.
