Beyond the Dome: Scientists criticize return of the dire wolf

By: Sydney Umstead, News Editor

Reports on April 7 said that the formerly extinct wolf species, dire wolves, have been brought back from extinction through genetic engineering. However, scientists have called into question the ethics of their “de-extinction.”

An article in Vox has criticized the supposed return of these wolves. They write, “The fluffy white canines — Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi — unveiled this week by Colossal Biosciences are closer to something like designer dogs.” Furthermore, the three wolves “are genetically modified, hybridized modern wolves, gestated in the womb of a domestic dog.” 

To do this, Colossal Biosciences had edited “the DNA of existing gray wolf cells to include some traits from long-extinct dire wolves (like their white hair and large size) and using them to create viable embryos with cloning technology.” 

Vox references the moral threat to humanity posed in the film Jurassic Park, where scientists de-extincted dinosaurs, and suggests that the threat of the dire wolves is not humanity-centered. Instead, “It’s the harm that we do to the animals.”

Furthermore, Colossal Biosciences does not seem to want to stop at the dire wolf. It also aims to “bring back long-gone species, such as woolly mammoths, dodos, and Tasmanian tigers,” Vox wrote. In engineering animals such as the woolly mammoth and dire wolf, the DNA is compared to the “genomes of closely related species, such as modern elephants and modern wolves.” 

In the case of producing the dire wolves, “cells were extracted from the blood of living gray wolves, and their DNA was modified with 20 edits that the company says are responsible for the dire wolf’s most distinctive physical traits.” Then, “The embryos that would become the animals Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi were then implanted to grow inside large dogs and delivered by cesarean section.” 

The business website argues that “extinction is a colossal problem,” and they are the people who intend to prevent species from the threat of extinction. However, skeptics are concerned that “there could certainly be unforeseen health complications in a gray wolf whose phenotype has been altered to resemble a different species, even as most of its genes remain the same,” and that “Whatever suffering they experience will be the responsibility of the company that created them,” according to Vox.