See where a frozen baby mammoth carcass was found the other day? Much excitement because it was very well preserved. It had died about 4000 years before the Earth was created, but I guess it never knew about the Creationists. Lucky mammoth.
An instant reaction from scientists, who hoped this one was so well preserved that good quality DNA would be present and then they could clone it, using an egg from a regular elephant, or hybridize it using sperm. Whatever, I'm not really sure I understand either the enthusiasm or the priority.
Species all over the planet are starting to go extinct in ever increasing numbers. Partly the result of the continuing destruction of habitats caused by either poverty or wealth, or war; partly the result of the radical changes to the behavior and ecology of species being caused by climate change and the resulting movement and loss of habitats. The combined effects of these two forces have never been seen before, and there is real potential for the loss of all species of plant and animals (yes, Virginia, including Homo sapiens) on this formerly lush planet.
Given all that I would like to say to the mammoth scientists - "let it go, its time was up, it became extinct, get over it." We don't need to go looking for Dinosaur DNA, or Mammoth DNA, we need to try to save the species whose time wasn't up, who aren't supposed to be going extinct now. Plenty of beautiful and interesting animals there, plenty of animals vital to the functioning of the Earth's ecosystems. This seems to me the worst kind of "mad scientist" beavering away in a laboratory, head down, fascinated by some detail, while all around him the Earth goes to hell.
And there was a second lesson from the long dead mammoth. Throughout Siberia it seems it is becoming hard to find specimens because human vultures descend on them, rip them apart, and sell the pieces to those other vultures called collectors. Mammoth hair can be bought on the web for $50 an inch it seems. Nothing is able to stop the destruction that human beings are inflicting on this once lovely planet. Living species are either destroyed or sold to collectors, so are fossil species, so are items of human heritage - I see a piece of gold from King Croesus has recently been stolen from a museum, probably by the director. And Iraq is now notorious not just for the destruction of its living humans, and the natural world, but for the antiquities of what was once one of the main centers for the origin of western civilization.
Nothing stops these people. The only comparison I can think of are the army ants of South America which remove and either eat or use anything in their path, leaving a desert where they have passed.
The impulses that drives these ants may well be similar to the ones that drive our species to devour everything in its path. Both species are doomed for extinction, but don't blame the ants.
And the future is going to see a planet littered with fossils (though not frozen ones for much longer), and with no scientists to bring any of them back to life. Although I wonder. Are there any UFOs out there full of collectors wanting a trophy from old Earth? Perhaps they could bring the odd species back to life in another part of the galaxy.
It is said that you can choose your friends but not your family. Worth adding that you don't get to choose your species either. What a pity, there are certainly days when I don't feel part of this particular species. Even army ants might be more congenial and caring!
Marcel Proust and I both think that "The true paradises are the paradises we have lost". Come and see why on The Watermelon Blog.