On March 4, the company known as Colossus Biosciences, a company whose aim is to bring extinct animals such as the woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius; the tasmanian tiger, Thylacinus cynocephalus; and the dodo, Raphus cucullatus back announced that they had successfully genetically modified mice with woolly mammoth DNA to make them more dense in both hair density and fat percentage.
This experiment was to show that the same could also be done to genetically modify the Asian elephant, Elephas maximus, the woolly mammoth’s closest living relative.
Colossus Biosciences does not want to bring these animals back from the dead just to put them in zoos or make them pets. They want to release them back into the wild to help combat climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Yet, these animals would not be 100% of what was found in the past, but would still functionally no longer be extinct.
Although this is a genetic and technological achievement, the ethics behind cloning and genetic engineering is very controversial. This ranges from what the animals could do to the environment to what countries and wealthy people could do with the technology itself. As Jeff Goldbloom once said in “Jurassic Park”, “Your scientists were too preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they should.”
These “woolly mice” themselves could also impact the environment in similar ways as the creation of the GloFish or the escaped pythons of Florida.
In 2003, the FDA had allowed the first genetically modified animal, the GloFish, to become commercially available. GloFish isn’t a specific species of new fish, but instead multiple species genetically infused with bioluminescent jellyfish genes. These GloFish are all owned and distributed by GloFish LLC. There is a fear in the scientific community that these fish are not as regulated as they should be by the government, and if they escape into nearby bodies of water or even worse, major bodies of water like the Mississippi River, they could cause an ecological disaster.
This is why some states like California or even whole countries like Australia and the UK, GloFish are entirely banned due to the trivial and powerful technology involved in making them. You must also get a patent to breed the fish yourself. The species of fish that have been chosen are also not beginner friendly species for fishkeepers, which decrease both their length and quality of life which only lasts three to five years at best. These species also tend to be more aggressive to other species of fish, especially ones that don’t glow.
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew destroyed a breeding facility that contained Burmese pythons, Python bivittatus, that had escaped into the Florida wilderness. With even more snakes being released by irresponsible pet and reptile owners, their population exploded and to this day is causing ecological damage to Florida’s ecosystems, especially in the Everglades. The majority of species of animals that are native fall prey to these pythons, from the eastern cottontail, Sylvilagus floridnus and marsh rabbit, Sylvilagus palustris, to the American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis.These Burmese pythons and other invasive species are utterly destroying the Floridian ecosystem with their mere presence and activities. This might seem irrelevant but these pythons were held at a facility that the pythons would have not escaped from if not for Hurricane Andrew. This could be a possibility for the facility that contains the Wooly Mice.
Both GloFish and the invasive pythons are good examples about how these woolly mice could affect the economy and ecosystems. Woolly mice could be monopolized by Colossus Biosciences having strict control over their purchasing and selling. If these woolly mice break out into the nearby wilderness, they could compete with the local or interbreed with the native mice species. Woolly mice, theoretically, are more adapted to surviving in cold harsh environments, like a woolly mammoth, the experiment it’s based off of. The environments/ecosystems this could affect could be cold pains/grasslands and forests. At the time of publishing however, Colossal has publicly announced they will not be selling the woolly mice and are under tight security to prevent an escape or thievery of the mice.
You might be wondering, how does this affect the state of Colorado, especially the Manitou Springs area?
Alicia Mauer, Biology and Environmental Science teacher, said that if a breeding population of these mice were to break out or be released into the Manitou and Garden of the Gods area, it could be devastating. “Let’s say that they didn’t have a natural predator, then they’re overpopulated and whatever they eat is going to be decimated,” Mauer said. “I would imagine that they are primary consumers, or they would be primary consumers going after vegetation, right? So we could see a lot of the vegetation going down, populations going down in size, and then we would have a lot less greenery around. And then potentially the disease transmission.”
The impact these mice would have on their environment would be catastrophic on almost Any environment they could come in contact with. The only thing that might keep them in check is if native predators register the mice as a potential food source. “They could compete with native rats, mice, and squirrels. They could out compete them for resources in the area,” Mauer said. “There would be a big overall consequence, definitely, from having the woolly mice there in a larger competitive population size.”
Despite this, other people have been interested in the project. “I feel like they’re actually a pretty cool research project because by bringing that back, it just opens up our technology for the world and like that side of stuff, “ senior Thomas Spraggins said. “Then with our economic system, and everything that’s happened with the world, it can be good or bad, because it can bring money revenue to, like zoos and like that kind of side thing. But also it messes with our ecosystem a lot by bringing something that was fully extinct.”
While, yes, this is a great technological advancement, there are the ethical questions that follow both the mice and the technology that made them. For example, a country making super soldiers or a potent disease. What if we are altering the work of a higher deity (if one believes in it)? “I think once it’s dead, it should stay dead,” sophomore Anthony Moore said. “I think everything happens for a reason. Woolly mammoths were killed for a reason.”
So despite all the good that this experiment has on the world, it also contains possibilities of utter destruction of both our environment and ourselves. While this knowledge has the ability to save us from disease, it could also lead to the creation of a disease that’ll be the doom of us all.
