There have been quite a few news stories in the last week about the possibility of cloning a woolly mammoth. Scientists in Russia supposedly discovered a complete DNA strand for the animal and scientists in Japan think they’ll have a clone done in the next five years.
I thought Benjamin, being the big elephant fan that he is, would find the news interesting, but he was actually upset by it. He had a number of concerns about the whole process:
- The mammoth went extinct around 10,000 years ago. Is it even possible for it to exist in the modern day?
- This mammoth won’t be allowed to run free. It will be kept and studied by scientists. This is cruel for any wild animal.
- Elephants are very social creatures. We know they don’t do well when they’re not in the herd. Mammoths are almost certainly similar, and just as certainly there won’t be a herd of them anytime soon.
- Japan is no place for a mammoth. Siberia, maybe.
- Lastly, this process is going to take several years and many attempts. Most of those attempts won’t be successful and some of those will result in a live animal that is somehow not right. That’s a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering for the animals.
Looking at it from this point of view, I have to say that I agree with Benjamin.
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