cloning the thylacine

if you clone the thylacine, what will you do with it? Where will it live? It will be useless without a population, and a population will be useless without habitat.

Peace, Love, Respect

The ecosystem is a very delicate and easily influenced thing, reintroducing a species could result in catostrophic events, humans made the thylacines extinct so bringing them back is very risky, they would probobly end up being raised in captivity anyway.

I think Mankind was a genetic experiment, so why not take this technology and make it our own. Why not become masters of it so as to improve the world we live in. Cheat death where extinction can be avoided. The preservation of life is always noble.

[edit on 25-11-2008 by newyorkee]

We probably could learn a lot if you think about it. Marsupials evolved on parallel paths as mammals. This version of a wolf was a perfect design to feed on sheep. It's mouth fit perfectly around their preys head. Maybe not a zoo but a sample habitat would be a neat sample and I'm sure we'd learn something. It's weird to see that old black and white footage of the last one walking in circles in that pen. And now to have the ability to bring them back is huge. It doesn't erase what's wrong but show's we can try to make it right.

I think of all the reasons to use cloning at all this is a good one. Thylacine's did not go extinct for any reason other than excessive human hunting. We have made mistakes that we can now correct and if one has made a mistake that one can correct then one should.....

We are fast losing several species due to human activity. Cloning should however go hand in hand with re-introduction and preservation of habitats, if we are going to go down this route it should be for purely altruistic reasons. We are the single most dangerous animal on this planet but that does not imply we are the most important.