Have woolly mammoth scientists seen ‘Jurassic Park’?

With the election, pandemic, new school year, creeping inflation fears and the electrifying joyride of the Jays as they chase down a wild-card spot, you may have missed a news item: Scientists are planning to bring back the woolly mammoth.

It’s like learning your late great-grandfather may pop in for Thanksgiving.

Colossal, a biotech startup that may well be run by geniuses who never watched “Jurassic Park,” announced plans this week to “pioneer a practical, working model of de-extinction and be the first to apply advanced gene-editing techniques to restore the woolly mammoth to the Arctic tundra.”

People, just a warning after that quote, I am in way over my head today. I’m now picturing Fred Flintstone mixing cement in the throat pouch of a pelican. That’s kind of what Colossal plans to do. They will splice the DNA of an Asian elephant with genes from a woolly mammoth and, if all goes according to plan, an uncanny hybrid of the beast that went extinct roughly 10,000 years ago will be roaming Siberia and the Canadian tundra within the decade.

Now, as someone who has lacked ambition my entire life, I don’t get why Colossal is starting with the woolly mammoth. If I suddenly got serious about Lego, I wouldn’t make my first project a full-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower. I’d start with a bungalow or tricycle. Why not test-drive this cutting-edge CRISPR genetic engineering on extinct creatures that don’t require the lab square-footage of an Amazon fulfilment centre? Why not bring back the spiny-knee leaf frog or dodo or Pyrenean ibex before you play God with an 11-foot, six-ton gargantuan that has been MIA since the Ice Age?

The answer, it seems, is that bringing back the woolly mammoth is less about bringing back the woolly mammoth and more about “disruptive conservation and restorative biology,” aimed to “rewild degraded ecosystems to help combat the effects of climate change and loss of biodiversity.”

It’s an intriguing idea. To save the Earth from climate change, bring back species that kept the planet in balance before climate change. Woolly mammoths helped maintain grasslands by, according to the New York Times, “breaking up moss, knocking down trees and providing fertilizer with their droppings.”

Or as Colossal noted this week: “The rewilding of critical, extinct species as proxies to their original habitats represents a new, disruptive conservation approach by restoring lost ecosystems that have the potential to help halt and even reverse the effects of climate change.”

So we bring back woolly mammoths and they restore grasslands, which in turn helps create a Ziplock seal on carbon dioxide in the tundra? My next question: if hulking mammalians from the Pliocene epoch are suddenly knocking about this decade, aren’t there inherent and unseen risks? If I recreated velociraptors and set a few loose in Yorkville, I suspect there would be unintended carnage on the swish patios.

Fast forward to 2027. The $15 million that Colossal announced in private funding this week has multiplied exponentially as Bitcoin billionaires fantasize about insane ROI vis-à-vis Tasmanian tigers and Bubal hartebeests. The woolly mammoth sequencing is complete. Now a fleet of FedEx chopper cranes are ready to transport the hulking quadrupeds. There are cover stories in National Geographic and shout-fests on Fox.

Tucker Carlson: “The woolly mammoth is a liberal plot to replace white people!”

Here’s what I don’t get. How do you sprinkle genetic pixie dust and reanimate the woolly mammoth without potentially “disrupting” existing Arctic ecosystems?

And wouldn’t that defeat the purpose?

Think about it. Suddenly, woolly mammoths are trampling around the frozen hinterlands. Within 30 seconds, wouldn’t the polar bears, reindeer, hares, wolves, oxen, falcons, lemmings and snowy owls convene an emergency meeting, during which the first order of business is a frantic question: “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?”

I’m reminded of three memorable quotes from “Jurassic Park.”

1. “Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions.”

2. “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

3. “Life finds a way.” With the creation of Colossal, it seems obvious we need some regulatory oversight over how we, as a species, play God. There are scientific, moral and bioethical questions hanging in the balance. If this emerging tech can eventually “help preserve critically endangered species that are on the verge of extinction and restore animals where humankind had a hand in their demise,” that is astounding.

You can imagine a future in which the concept of extinction becomes extinct.

That’s the rub: how do we bring back the past without jeopardizing the future?

I would love to see a woolly mammoth in my lifetime.

But not if the return of this natural wonder creates unnatural chaos.