Shall we bring back the extinct animals?

Please watch this video (you can stop at 5 minutes into the video) and write a response to the following questions:

• Do you think de-extinction is possible?
• Do you think it would be a good idea for us to bring some animals back from extinction?
• Do we have a responsibility to bring animals back from extinction if we have the technology, and it’s our fault that they became extinct?

De-extinction means bringing back animals which went extinct decades ago, or even millions of years ago. I think technically speaking, de-extinction could work for those recently extinct animals because their DNA might still be well-preserved, and they might continue on to have a happy life if luckily their habitats were not still being destroyed.

However, for the Mammoths, who went extinct more than ten thousand years ago, it is difficult to extract their DNA and clone mammoths from their close relatives like Asian elephants. Even the mammoths that were successfully brought back from Siberian ice fields. Their natural habitats and sources of food have been completely changed. Therefore, I don’t think it is a wise choice to bring back those animals which have gone a long time ago. Because economically it not only costs lots of resources to stimulate their habitats and make them thrive again, but also there might be uncertain results/consequences such as unknown bacteria that could endanger human lives.

We have no responsibility to bring mammoths back to life because it was a part of nature. But for those recently extinct animals, before bringing them back to life, the most vital tasks would be to restore their habits and ensure that they were not hunted again by evil human beings. But I don’t think that human intervention can reverse the forces of nature. I am afraid those animals will go extinct again without long term protection. Therefore, it is more important to preserve the existing living species and restrict the over-demanding activities from human beings.