Over 10,000 years ago, the dire wolf became extinct as the ice age came to an end. From what the scientific community can tell, these wolves became geographically isolated, leading them into evolving into a distinct species that couldn’t interbreed with coyotes and gray wolves, leading to their ultimate demise. It is believed that in their prime, they preyed on larger animals, but as the ice age ended, their prey, like the wooly mammoth, struggled to adapt and were ultimately entirely wiped out. The dire wolf was one of 60 known species to have gone extinct around the same time.
In 2019, entrepreneur Ben Lamm held a meeting with Harvard University geneticist George Church. Church had expressed intrigue on the idea of de-extinction of species. The plan began and led to a launch of Colossal Biosciences in September of 2021. The salesman teamed up with the scientist and the ball started rolling. Now, in under four years, the company has raised over $435 million and is on a mission to recreate animals we have only seen with the aid of computer graphics.
Among last week’s flurry of headlines, Colossal announced the successful delivery of three dire wolf pups. Two males were born last fall and a female was born in January. The science behind this idea is that the gray wolf we know today and the dire wolf shared 99.5% of the same DNA. Geneticists were able to edit the gray wolf genome in 20 individual places with 14 edits, and then transfer the most viable embryos into a domestic recipient dog. The wolves were born and developed on an undisclosed location but Colossal gave details that it was in a 2,000-acre facility that is certified by both the American Humane Society and the USDA. The DNA from the dire wolf came from a discovered tooth and other remains discovered that researchers were able to sequence the dire wolf’s genome.
According to staff, the wolves exhibit a blend of characteristics—they behave somewhat like domestic dogs since they’ve had so much interaction with humans from their very start, but they are also beginning to exhibit a more natural disposition that is unique from domestic dogs as well as today’s wolves.
The company is most determined to de-extinct more species with a focal point on wooly mammoths since they share so much DNA with today’s African elephant.
If you aren’t wondering what’s going on yet, on Colossal’s website, they proudly tout their conservation partners that include the American Wolf Foundation, Wolf Connection, Yellowstone Forever and Gulf Coast Canine Project (plus many more). Now do you see?
It’s a real-life Jurassic Park that has the intrigue of the scientific community linked to the appeal for the investing community with a support system that thinks reintroducing wolves across the western U.S. was a good idea! In my research for this column, I found all the literature I wanted on the who, what, when and where, but very little on the why. So, it begs the question, what are they going to do with these wolves and why does our population need them?
This year, the gray wolf has killed thousands of calves, cows, deer, elk, moose, bison and more. A plan to reintroduce wolves in Yellowstone in 1995 has turned into a state-by-state management nightmare that feels completely out of control right now. In early April, California entered “Phase 2” of its three-phase plan to deal with its population. On April 9, the Pet and Livestock Protection Act passed through the House Natural Resources Committee on its way to the House floor. This bill would delist the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act list, which is a huge win for cattle producers who merely want to protect their livelihood. However, nearly every state that has wolves truly doesn’t know how to manage them.
Here lies the problem. Ranchers across this nation were dealt a major issue because environmental groups wanted to reintroduce wolves, but never had a plan to deal with and manage the population. The funding behind the wolf release was so politically funded that the livelihoods of ranchers, deer and elk herd populations, and safety of pets and humans weren’t ever truly considered. Whatever conservation plan was in place has entirely failed when ranchers watch a wolf prey on their newborn calves but cannot do anything to defend their very way of life or their family.
Now to see that the scientific community is on another path to bring back an extinct species without a clear agenda, we must ask ourselves—and the scientists—why? We also have to ask, where is the regulation in this and what else is in the works? These animals were brought back into this world, not by their choosing, but by a well-funded group. This is a slippery slope for science that is playing with natural history in a time when the gray wolf population is creating more issues than rewards. — LOGAN IPSEN
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