Can we bring extinct species back using genetic engineering?
You may have seen the recent news that a US biotechnology company has brought an extinct wolf species back to life. This is not true. In reality, the company has genetically engineered a living wolf to resemble some characteristics of an extinct wolf species.
The company’s announcement is important because it is one of many proposals to use genetic engineering for nature “conservation.” The most immediate threat is the proposed release of a genetically engineered American chestnut tree into the Eastern forests of the US and Canada.
GMO wolves
In April, the US biotechnology company Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences announced it had used genetic engineering to achieve “de-extinction” of the dire wolf. The company claims it has “successfully restored a once-eradicated species” and says, “our team is proud to return the dire wolf to its rightful place in the ecosystem.” The dire wolf went extinct over 10,000 years ago.
In reality, these animals are genetically engineered gray wolves. The company used genome editing to make 20 “edits” to 14 genes in gray wolves to replicate some known genetic characteristics of dire wolves (a dire wolf’s genome is 2.5 million DNA base pairs, encoding about 19,000 genes). The company says the three living genetically engineered wolves are in a 2,000-acre secret location in the US, surrounded by a 10-foot fence.
“We’re going to call them de-extinct dire wolves. You can call them proxy dire wolves or Colossal dire wolves. Or, you can call them gray wolves with 20 edits that recreate functional dire wolves in the ecosystems of today.” —Beth Shapiro, Chief Science Officer, Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences
Global backlash in scientific and conservation circles triggered the company’s chief scientist, Dr. Beth Shapiro, to backtrack from the hype and defend “de-extinction science” in a video message posted on X: “Some of you are real mad about this…what exactly defines a species…The goal of this project is about restoring ecological functions and enhancing biodiversity…” Antionio Regaldo, Biomedicine Editor at MIT Technology Review, said, “This is the first Internet fauxpology for biotechnology I have ever seen.”
Colossal says it is also working to revive the woolly mammoth, the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger and says, “We are elevating expectations for de-extinction by rebuilding species to be stronger and more resilient than their predecessors.”
- “Return’ of the dire wolf is an impressive feat of genetic engineering, not a reversal of extinction” by Timothy Hearn, The Conversation, April 8, 2025
GMOs for conservation?
A moratorium on genetically engineering wild species in natural ecosystems will be debated at the October 2025 World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“Synthetic biology and conservation are grounded in very different worldviews. Conservation at its best is rooted in protection – in safeguarding complexity, respecting ecological limits, in systemic thinking and proceeding with caution. Genetic technologies are rooted in control – in reprogramming life, optimizing ecosystems often in line with human imaginaries and for human ends, and views nature as flawed and problems as isolated from the whole system of ecological, social, ethical and economic interactions” – Pat Thomas, A Bigger Conversation
- Read more analysis in the report from the German government’s conservation agency: Genetic Engineering, Nature conservation and Biological Diversity: Boundaries of Design, 2022
- Watch the recent webinar “Engineering Nature? Genetic Technologies in Conservation”
See our new page cban.ca/conservation