Could the Woolly Mammoth be brought back from extinction?

[Brazoo]

I don't think early humans played that big of a part on the extinction of the mammoth.

It was extremely difficult to hunt a healthy adult mammoth for example.

I'd say most of the time...the gathering hunters would've targeted an injured one...that makes more sense.

Spearing a mammoth was downright dangerous to early man. Plus when they managed a mammoth kill...the carcass would have fed the clan for a long time. So repeated hunts were not carried out often.

If elephants thrived in Africa...there was a reason for it...huge and powerful...against humans with primitive weapons.

I'm a firm believer that the main cause of the mass extinction of many large mammals in North America...and all about the same time period...was the warming trend that occurred at that time...and the glacial retreat of a melting ice age. As the ice sheets retreated there would have been changing vegetation patterns. Rising sea levels were another factor. Forests replaced open woodlands and grasslands across the continent (good-bye mammoth food). A mass disease of some kind is another possibility.

And while I think humans were really not that big of a factor in contributing to their extinction...they surely played a part in some way as well.

Just my humble opinion of course...

Cool! I know for a while it was presumed that hunting was a factor, at least in popular culture, which is where I probably heard about it. All your points make a lot of sense - and now I have another dorky subject to think about and look up info on!

In any case, humans lived during same time and even outlived mammoths, so hopefully we won't have the same problem with revived mammoths as we did with the Rapters in Jurassic Park

[Hector]

Let's revive mammoths...so we can feed them to our revived T Rex's...

[Hector]

Interesting, I've always heard that it was believed they were wiped out by the advance of the most recent ice age.

But if Hector's theory about a warming trend is correct, I'd be willing to bet that warming trend was brought on by all those damned SUV's and incandescent light bulbs our ancestors were abusing.


I wouldn't be surprised to see a version of the Mammoth in our lifetime...I would be in awe, but not surprised....MMMMmmmmmm, Mammoth Burgers!

On the ice age thing...people tend to think that it was all a giant block of ice...but it was kinda like really cold with lots of grasslands...kinda like our modern day tundra...it would've been an ideal place for mammoths to thrive in. Forests were almost non existent...but when the ice age started waning...the grasslands started getting replaced by forests...and thus...the doom for the big hairy fellas.

At least that's my take...what do I know...I just collect Superman dollies...

[Werewolf]

I don't think early humans played that big of a part on the extinction of the mammoth.

It was extremely difficult to hunt a healthy adult mammoth for example.

What Hector says.

The media seems to like the perpetuate this image of early humans as the masters of their domain and destroyer of animals. Their reality was much different. They were short and armed with pointy stickys. Not exactly the mighty mammoth killers of myth. They were just as much prey as they were predators.

[johnmiic]

There have been a few specials on Discovery and TLC about Mammoths and baby Mammoths being found. I would love to see one brought back as I would love to see many extinct animals brought back-if it could be done. What might be better is to see if any of these frozen Mammoths are male and check if they could extract frozen sperm. Then just impregnate some female elephants and see if they could cross-breed.

Just don't clone the Velociraptors!

[torgospizza]

Maybe we should start cataloging endangered species' DNA now. That way we could bring back anything we inadvertently wipe out in the present.

[MIB41]

Maybe we should start cataloging endangered species' DNA now. That way we could bring back anything we inadvertently wipe out in the present.

Hey I like that. Ingenious idea!

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

They did try to breed one a while back, but the sample cells were too degraded. Finding preserved mammoths has always been fairly common. Farmers in the Russian steppes have been known to feed the meat to their dogs.

Don C.

[Gorn Captain]

Maybe we should start cataloging endangered species' DNA now. That way we could bring back anything we inadvertently wipe out in the present.

But then we would have no issues with wiping out species.
"We can always revive them later on. Wipe them out, guys!"

We humans tend to think we can solve all our problems later on, when we get round to it. Like buying a carded Mego Iron Man this month, and saying "we'll get to the VISA bill next month, no problem..."

I see no reason why we would revive mammoths, when there are enough problems and issues we should deal with right now. We're wiping out ape species, tigers, rhinos, so no need to save an extinct species while we could be saving a living one!

[Nostalgiabuff]

i think they will do it just to see if it can be done....with no thought to any consequences of reintroducing an animal that has been extinct for millenia.
.
i find it rather funny too, the the people who started commenting below that article immediately went to religeous talk about the bible and Noahs flood.....

[ctc]

>But then we would have no issues with wiping out species.

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Remember to read right to left.

Don C.

[wayne foundation 07]

I remember a couple years ago the found a fully intact adult one completley frozen and they showed a graph as to how long it would take after using a regular elephant to get one close to the original.Yes I think its mare than possible may have even tried.

[torgospizza]

We're wiping out ape species, tigers, rhinos, so no need to save an extinct species while we could be saving a living one!

Please don't try to bring rationality into the equation; this is mad science we're talking about!

[Marty.N]

That's a fun story, thanks for posting it.

[Brazoo]

Maybe we should start cataloging endangered species' DNA now. That way we could bring back anything we inadvertently wipe out in the present.

They've actually been cataloging DNA samples of plants and animals for a while.

Especially important is all the work that's been put into cataloging the seeds of plants we need for food. there are also scientists hunting down all the different and rarest wild variants foods we eat so that we might be able to use the genetic variants to try and keep the food we eat from going extinct in the case of some mass epidemic to our domesticated crops.