De-extinction and Conservation Genetics in the Anthropocene

Abstract

One interesting feature of de-extinction—particularly with respect to long-extinct species such as the passenger pigeon, thylacine, and mammoth—is that it does not fit neatly into the primary rationales for adopting novel ecosystem-management and species-conservation technologies and strategies: efficiency and necessity. The efficiency rationale is that the new technology or strategy enables conservation biologists to do what they already do more effectively. Why should researchers embrace novel information technologies? Because they allow scientists to better track, monitor, map, aggregate, and analyze species behaviors, biological systems, and human-environment interactions. This enables better decision-making about how to protect species, which areas to conserve, and how to reduce anthropogenic impacts on ecological systems. Many projects in conservation genomics are justified in this way. But de-extinction is not a more efficient or necessary means to some conservation aim that is already recognized as acceptable or important. In fact, because it is focused on reconstituting approximations of nonexistent species, rather than maintaining extant ones, the social and ethical assessment of de-extinction is not limited to asking whether it is a good means. We can ask as well whether de-extinction is a worthwhile “conservation” goal in the first place.