It’s only been a few years since the movie Jurassic Park was in theaters. When it came out some people felt it was too close to what was going on in laboratories around the world. One of the big questions has always been if we had the capability to bring back extinct animals and plants would it be a good idea? Most of these animals and plants disappeared in a natural way without any input from humans. While this may not hold true for what has been going on lately, it certainly was true for dinosaurs and such. We are told by most scientists dinosaurs were destroyed by a meteor hit but a few believe they may have been destroyed by a disease. Nature has a way of making adjustments. If we believe humans were not around when dinosaurs were then we probably should believe humans could not have existed with dinosaurs, because we would have landed up being tasty hors d’oeuvres for the creatures.

It is being said scientists have a list of creatures which are extinct. This list contains the extinct animals they want to bring back. There are no T Rexes on the list or any other dinosaur. Some of the animals on the list were victims of recent extinctions and probably the most famous animals are the Dodo Bird and the Woolly Mammoth. Maybe it would be important to find out why these animals went extinct in the first place. The Dodo Bird met its fate because of human beings. The current belief is the bird was hunted to extinction for food by Dutch sailors who enjoyed eating it. It is said one of the reasons they went after the dodo bird was it had no fear of humans and you could walk right up to it. No wonder they called it a Dodo. The reasons for the extinction of the Woolly Mammoth died with the last animal, but there are theories. One theory states humans hunted the woolly mammoth to extinction for its flesh. Another blames climate change and then there is a third which places the blame on disease. If it was some sort of a disease could we be doing ourselves a disservice by bringing back a creature which might catch a disease that could ultimately harm humans? Remember there are diseases which can go from one species to another.

Some animals on the list were clearly destroyed by humans. One of them was the Caspian Tiger. It didn’t become extinct until the 1960s. An order went out from the Russian government in the early twentieth century. It stated that all tigers found near the Caspian Sea were to be killed. As a matter of fact that is how this particular tiger got its name. The locals called them Hyrcanian/Turan Tigers. Farmers began to take over the territory of the tigers and planted crops clearing the land and forestry and the remaining tigers did not do well in this new environment. One of the reasons was their main food source were bears and these bears were also being hunted and their populations greatly reduced. Gradually all the tigers died out.

Another animal which is being considered for resurrection is the Auroch. It is said the last one of these animals died in 1627 in Poland.  The Auroch is a type of wild cattle. It was found all over Europe, Asia and North Africa and is considered the ancestor of the cattle which are around today. These animals were quite large. Some species weighed as much as 3,300 pounds. An adult female cow averages about 1,600 pounds while a male bull weighs in at about 2,400 pounds.  The Auroch stood at least six feet tall at the shoulder. Aurochs would produce a lot more meat and milk due to their size and here is the strange part of all of this. Many of today’s cattle still have Auroch genes in their bodies so the animals may be able to be brought back by gene manipulation and not cloning. It is believed the Aurochs became extinct due to loss of habitat and hunting, but this does make one wonder. If these animals were the cattle of their day they must have been on a lot of farms so the reason for their extinction seems a little shaky.

The Thylacine was a marsupial which was native to Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea. It became extinct in the 1960s. It was also known as the Tasmanian Tiger. The animal had become extinct in Australia about two thousand years ago, but lasted in Tasmania until Europeans arrived. The government had put a bounty on them and they were hunted to extinction. Australia is said to account for one third of all contemporary mammal extinctions worldwide. This is a pretty grim statistic. One of the reasons the bounty was put on these animals is they were considered a pest and dangerous to livestock. There were also other theories on why they went extinct that don’t all have to do with the bounty. Some say competition with dogs destroyed them and others say shrinking habitats contributed to their extinction.

Most of us have heard about the Woolly Mammoth, but I wonder how many have heard of the Woolly Rhinoceros? This is another extinct creature which is being considered for restoration. We know about the Wooly Rhinoceros because of cave paintings and one complete mummified example. These creatures were around for millions of years, we know this because we found one example which was at least three and a half million years old. We really don’t know the reason for its disappearance. There are a lot of theories and one of them includes what is known as the hyper-disease hypothesis. A very basic definition of the hyper-disease hypothesis is a disease which can jump from one species to another. There are other theories however and these blame hunting and climate change. It is believed this animal became extinct around 8,000 B.C.

Will bringing back some of these animals cause problems for humans in the future? For those who say no I have to wonder how they can be so sure without knowing exactly why the animals became extinct in the first place. There is probably much easier to ascertain why some species became extinct in modern times, but for those which became extinct thousands of years ago, this is a different story. I think the biggest risk will be that of disease.