Do you think cloning extinct animals from preserved DNA is ethical?
Depends on your extinct animal, doesn’t it? In the case of the thylacine, it’s ethical. The thylacines were restricted in range and population by the action of humankind and humankind’s animals (one of which was the ancestor of the Australian dingo). Yes, there would be an environmental impact. The thylacines would eat people’s livestock, and compete with dingoes for food and territory. Think of resurrecting the thylacine as one step toward righting a horrible wrong. == Another thing to think about is the passenger pigeon: from a population of two billion to zilch. We don’t know what their ecological role was in North America, but it was probably significant, given their huge population. Are North American forests now suffering for lack of passenger pigeons?
