Bringing Back the Passenger Pigeon

Earlier today I posted an article about the demise of the once ubiquitous passenger pigeon through wanton, wholesale slaughter. Truly a sad chapter in the tale of modern man's callous behavior toward other species. But there are controversial efforts underway to bring the species (or at least, something similar) back from extinction through genetic tinkering.

John James Audubon

Using techniques from molecular biology, a project called Revive & Restore was initiated in 2012 with the aim of recreating extinct species, and their initial focus is the passenger pigeon. This project was started by entrepreneur Ryan Phelan and Stewart Brand, futurist and creator of the Whole Earth Catalog. Starting with a close relative of the species, the band-tail pigeon, they hope to alter the birds' genome until an almost identical analogue of the passenger pigeon is produced. Although it will not truly be a passenger pigeon, the project aims to make a bird that looks and acts enough like Ectopistes migratorius that any scientist that studied it would be fooled into thinking it's the real thing. This includes altering the genetic sequence enough that it would be practically indistinguishable from the passenger's genetic code, which has been preserved.

From the Revive & Restore website.

Revive & Restore has performed research that suggests modern North American forests could not only support this reintroduction, but that it may be quite beneficial for the forest's overall health. If successful, they would breed the birds in captivity for some time before letting them free in the wild, which they hope to do around 2030. Eventually, the project will begin work on larger species, such as the wooly mammoth. With the huge expected revenues from a public that would be eager to see mammoths and other extinct species up close in real life, the project directors hope to fund massive conservation efforts to protect currently endangered species and their habitats.

Not everyone is on board with the idea, however. Besides questions of whether the hybrid species could really be called a passenger pigeon, skeptics doubt they could even survive in the wild without the massive numbers the original birds had, which provided protection from predators (other than humans). Some believe that modern forests have adapted to the species loss, and that the reintroduction could throw off whatever new balance has been achieved. They fear that bringing back the passenger pigeon would introduce the same kinds of negative results to the current ecosystem as seen when invasive species take hold in a new area.