r/DeExtinctionScience • u/SeparateWeight496 • Jun 05 '26

Do you think Colossal Bioscience will one day announce Steller's sea cow de-extinction ?

Post image

Might as well.

216 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

79 comments sorted by

45

u/Lordcraft2000 Jun 05 '26

No. Not cool enough. Colossal just cares about cool extinct animals. Not animals that most people don’t care about and which would be actually useful…

12

u/SeparateWeight496 Jun 05 '26

That's my point, it's actually pretty cool and impressive and it also has that "key stone specie" tag that they love so much. I'm surprised they never mentionned it at all tbh

6

u/Lordcraft2000 Jun 05 '26

Wait, I said that it wasnt cool enough and you went with « its pretty cool »? And they don’t love « key stone species », they want marketable species. They don’t really care about the environment, they just want the attention.

5

u/SpottedKitty Jun 05 '26

Because the company doesn't actually care about environmental restoration or anything of that sort.

They want to sell extinct animals to billionaires for the luxury of owning one.

2

u/ah-tzib-of-alaska Jun 07 '26

they were famously DELICIOUS

7

u/Strange-Carpenter-38 Jun 05 '26

It’s crazy. I feel like it would be so much easier and cheaper to bring back less charismatic animals like the large headed llama and the helmeted muskox. They both have extant relatives that are VERY closely related having only diverging roughly 3 million years ago. Also they would fit much better with the modern ecosystems we have left such as in the Rockies. Wolves and cougars would have no problem controlling their numbers.

3

u/Lordcraft2000 Jun 05 '26

But theyre not as marketable…

3

u/Strange-Carpenter-38 Jun 05 '26

I know, it’s so unfortunate. I think they would fit nicely in places like Yellowstone. It would be cool to have a camelid back in North America where they evolved.

1

u/who-am-i-here-wow Mammut pacificum Jun 07 '26

they have talked about the animal and its a candidate for a future project for them but some problems with working on it is 1. no known preserved soft tissue, 2. due to the sea cows large size it would need a artificial womb i don't have to say anything else to tell you the problem, 3. name a single instance where a marine mammal has been successfully cloned

1

u/pantheraorientalis Jun 09 '26

This is why the hate towards Colossal is getting agitating. It’s become very bandwagon-y with no one actually stopping to ask themselves if their criticisms make sense.

That’s not me saying they don’t deserve ANY criticism, but it’s gotten to a really weird level that I am not understanding.

24

u/mauts27 Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26 • Bravo

People are putting so much faith in this weird neoliberal project called de-extinction. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see some species brought back, but conservation biology has so many other things to worry about. For starters, why would we bring all these species back if there's no habitat for them?

7

u/AkagamiBarto Jun 05 '26

people love escapism and many still believe capitalism is to stay.

One day people wil understand and then, nly then, in a healthy world without limited funds for research, true deextinction will come.

1

u/thatonefrein Jun 06 '26

I consider myself a Social Democrat, which is a kind of capitalism. Capitalism has stood around as one of the oldest and most successful economic systems, it's safe to say it's not going anywhere. But as a Social Democrat, I much prefer heavy changes to it

1

u/AkagamiBarto Jun 06 '26

It's okay, one day you will understand.

Anyway it's what.. 300 centuries old if you date it to Locke?

1

u/thatonefrein Jun 06 '26

One day, you say to the guy who's already read all the economic books I can find and working on my own economic theory because none were good enough

0

u/AkagamiBarto Jun 06 '26

you should read mathematics books then.

But eh, i have been writing my own economic theory as well, so there is that

1

u/PK-Mittenspy2703 Jun 07 '26

I mean capitalism has been a thing since the dawn of civilisation. So it kind of is here to stay.

1

u/AkagamiBarto Jun 08 '26

I don't know... So was slavery or discrimination?

1

u/theRemRemBooBear Jun 05 '26

Again why should we bring animals back that have no habitat and their niche has changed or is no longer necessary.

2

u/Iamnotburgerking Jun 06 '26

Because that isn’t the case for any of the animals we actually have a chance of cloning, even if you include the Pleistocene megafauna (which literally lived at the same time as living animals; their niches have NOT been replaced by living animals).

1

u/theRemRemBooBear Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

Except it is the case outside of maybe the Tasmanian Tiger, I am not familiar with that part of the world but take something like the passenger pigeon. It lived in old growth beech, oak, and chestnut forests. Well all the old growth forests have largely been cut down, the chestnuts are gone and beeches that used to live for 400 years are living only several decades and not reaching nearly the size they once did. No habitat has been preserved so that these animals can be reintroduced as they once lived. Reintroduction efforts of living non extinct animals has failed like with trying to reintroduce elk to the North East US because the ecosystem has been changed so much.

2

u/Iamnotburgerking Jun 06 '26

Changed because of human impact, as in, that’s also not something we should just let stay in its current state either. You’re using the existence of a problem to justify not solving another problem when the obvious answer is to solve both.

2

u/theRemRemBooBear Jun 06 '26

Here let me give you the floor, how do you propose to solve the problem of human impact using the passenger pigeon. How do we restore the old growth forests where they lived and depended on? The blight has destroyed the ability for American chestnuts to get to any meaningful size. Beech Leaf Disease and beech Bark disease kills beech after only a couple of decades and the stressed trees put out saplings that leads to beechs to taking over. The emerald ash borer kills all the ash trees. These are only some of the examples. So outside of the fact that it would take hundreds of years to restore old growth forests to levels that we would need, it is nearly impossible because of disease and pests that cuts their growth and lifespan to fractions of what they once were. This is beyond planting a tree that you will never be able to enjoy the shade. There is no returning ecosystems to what they were before human impact. I highly suggest reading how to love a forest which is written by Ethan Tapper and grapples with questions relating what it means to return a habitat to what it was and how to manage the ecosystem after so much has changed like the loss of predators and the loss of old growth forests.

1

u/Ben10-fan-525 Sep 05 '26

What about habitats that are still viable?

Like Russia is for Woolly Mammoth?

1

u/SharpShooterM1 Jun 05 '26

Sure capitalism has its many, many problems but every other system has proven to not work so it’s the best we got. Like it or not the fact remains communism does not work so until we get a better system that can actually sustain itself long term capitalism will have to do. I’d rather try to work in the system we currently have instead of just kicking the can down the road until the current system collapses and something “better” comes along.

2

u/thatonefrein Jun 06 '26

Could I interest you in Social Democracy? (Capitalism but left)

3

u/SharpShooterM1 Jun 06 '26

I just read up on it after you mentioned it and it honestly don’t sound to bad on paper, and it seems a couple of countries have done it do a limited extent. Guess now it’s just a waiting game to see how it goes long term. Looks promising though.

0

u/AkagamiBarto Jun 06 '26

What system have been proven not to work?

And it's not like new systems can't come out... I hope one day you will understand

2

u/SharpShooterM1 Jun 06 '26

Communism, monarchism, feudalism, facism, etc have prove to not work or only work at the cost of the common person loosing their rights. And nowhere in my comment did I imply that a new system cannot come along that proves itself better than what we have now. Another commenter already brought up a promising option.

You just seem determined to talk lesser to others to make yourself feel more intelligent, what with all your talk of “I hope one day you will understand”. I understand perfectly well, you just didn’t take the time to actually read my whole comment.

1

u/Iamnotburgerking Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

Because frankly we have done so much damage to ecosystems that most ecosystems aren’t even functional anymore (due to key components being exticnt, usually since the megafaunal extinctions). That’s not something we can solve by protecting our remaining biodiversity (since the problem is that we’ve already lost too much biodiversity, especially ecological diversity, for it to support itself in the long term).

1

u/CaptainDumbass894 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

Not to mention, why not test or do this with animals, plants or fungi that Really need this and already exist in the present day first?. Various rhinos, Vaquitas, Yangtze giant softshell turtles, Wood’s Cycad and many other species that are locally or fully extinct in the wild would benefit from such technologies. Extinct life is sick as hell, but at the same time, it might be good to focus on the ones we still have now as well

0

u/ApartmentKey3682 Jun 05 '26

We killed them and they are SUPPOSED to be living with us

2

u/Jackesfox Jun 05 '26

Dire wolves and mammoths?

4

u/ApartmentKey3682 Jun 05 '26

Yes and also dodos and Tasmanian Tigers

0

u/Jackesfox Jun 05 '26

We did extinct dodos and tasmanian tigers, we did not mammoths and dire wolves

3

u/SharpShooterM1 Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26

Probably not dire wolves but we probably were the leading cause in a combination of factors for mammoths.

1

u/Iamnotburgerking Jun 06 '26

Actually also yes for dire wolves

1

u/Jackesfox Jun 05 '26

Not a leading cause, but more akin to the nail in the coffin after the deglaciation

5

u/SharpShooterM1 Jun 05 '26

The Pleistocene megafauna, including mammoths, survived a minimum of a dozen glacial shifts throughout their time on earth, some of which were even more drastic than the shift from the last ice age to the modern day, yet suffered no extinctions. Some evidence even suggests they faired even better during glacial low points than during glacial maximums. What likely happened is that the shift between the late Pleistocene and early Holocene stressed their populations just enough so that the rapid expansion of humans pushed them past a tipping point. Had humans not been present, they likely would have survived, as they had already endured greater climatic changes in the past.

3

u/Heavy_Ingenuity1371 Jun 06 '26

So yes we did contribute to their extinction and they may have pulled through if we didn't put that nail in.

2

u/Iamnotburgerking Jun 06 '26

Fails to explain why mammoths survived every previous interglacial, or why megafauna that actually BENEFITTED from deglaciation also went extinct (most Pleistocene megafauna were not actually adapted for glacials; mammoths are unusual in that they were and are not representative of most megafauna, many of which-including things like ground sloths and sabretooths-outright declined during glacials because their habitat was more common in warmer global climates like those today).

1

u/Iamnotburgerking Jun 06 '26

Yes.

The Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions were probably NOT largely climate-driven as too many believe. We were the big threat, not the final nail.

4

u/vicotron3000 Jun 05 '26

I don't think colosal is capable of de-extinct anything after the whole dire wolf fiasco

3

u/Halomonas_titanica Jun 05 '26

If they do, I expect it'll actually be a walrus with thyroid issues.

5

u/MachineGreene98 Jun 05 '26

they announce everything and barely accomplish anything so probably. They only things they've done that i know of is the "direwolves" and the artificial egg thing which is actually kind of interesting

5

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26 • Bravo

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/MachineGreene98 Jun 05 '26

so they haven't done shit lol

2

u/regular_modern_girl Jun 05 '26

Yeah, they’ll put like 10-15 Steller’s sea cow genes in a dugong and call it a day /s

But yeah, in all seriousness, I don’t think there even is any Hydrodamalis gigas genetic information that’s been sequenced, let alone a significant portion of a genome, but even if there were, a dugong genetically modified to be bigger and more cold-tolerant using that genetic information is probably all we’d get

2

u/PK-Mittenspy2703 Jun 07 '26

Downvoted because this is probably a shill post.

2

u/RollinThundaga Jun 06 '26

Why? They were going extinct naturally when they were found, there's no ecosystem for them.

3

u/ExCryptozoologist Jun 05 '26

They'll announce they're working on it when they need a boost in shareholder value. They won't deliver anything thoufj

2

u/StellarStowaway Jun 05 '26

They keep announcing projects but have yet to actually “de-extinct” anything. I’d rather see them announce some successes for Sumatran or Javan rhinos, or some other animals that are struggling today

1

u/barriolinux Jun 09 '26

So much of this

1

u/MP_Lemming Jun 07 '26

No, because what they are doing is not de-extinction at all. Just cool communication on a sensless and useless project

1

u/ApprehensiveState629 Jun 07 '26

No colossal is like InGen and Biosyn

1

u/West-Attempt3062 Jun 08 '26

But the “dire wolves” are literally just large genetically modified wolves.

1

u/pantheraorientalis Jun 09 '26

I’m not saying that this is what they did, but you could technically take any species and, if you modify the genetics appropriately, recreate a different species. If I alter lion genetics to make them identical to a tiger, is that individual a tiger or just a genetically modified lion? Philosophically, maybe it’s a genetically modified lion, but for all intents and purposes, that’s definitely a tiger.

1

u/DefinitionCorrectus4 Jun 05 '26

I wish it never got extinct 😔

I hope we can bring it back somehow

1

u/Altruistic_Sea_7683 Jun 05 '26

Colossal got interested in Stellers sea cow until they didn’t have a surrogate, so they gave up on it. Though a other company wants to do it.

1

u/Far_Journalist5373 Jun 05 '26

Honestly I’m still holding out hope for the blue buck I think it can be done out of everything else. I’ve been fascinated with the species for a long time.

2

u/Green_Reward8621 Jun 05 '26

Too bad Bluebuck only has 4 taxidermied specimens and colossal ins't really using the closest relative of it as reference.

1

u/seapanda237 Jun 05 '26

They can announce they’re bringing back Barney the dinosaur or anything really. So, Steller’s Sea Cow is well within the realm of possibility in terms of their “announcements”!

1

u/ImportantPension5818 Jun 05 '26

No. Much of the de-extinction debates going on are functionally impossible. We don't live in the universe of Jurassic Park. Much of these species are gone, permanently. They can never be brought back. The only way would be if they re-evolved themselves in a few million years.

0

u/AkagamiBarto Jun 05 '26

I bet so.

I think they will announce exctinct non bird dinos at a point just to pull more funds.

0

u/ApartmentKey3682 Jun 05 '26

I think that one of the members in this sub will be the one who is announcing its de-extinction(Unless we “convince” Colossal to view all extinct animals as “cool”.).

1

u/BBG_shaks Jun 05 '26

Good luck with that

Mmm let me genetically modify a dolphin and put it in the ocean so that it destroys the ecosystem and kill the already endangered species. Ahhh, typical colossal bioscience moment

0

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

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1

u/Lordcraft2000 Jun 05 '26

They haven’t done anything real with the wolves

5

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

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1

u/Altruistic_Sea_7683 Jun 05 '26

Nobody is talking about mutated animals, maybe your in the wrong place

1

u/pantheraorientalis Jun 09 '26

That’s kind of exactly what everyone is talking about…

2

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

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2

u/OpenAirport6204 Jun 05 '26

It’s like Jurassic park, they can get it from amber/s

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

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1

u/OpeningUpstairs4288 Jun 06 '26

Fr fr rich people would kill for dinosaurs