Conservation and Cloning

While browsing the Internet recently, I stumbled upon this article. According to the article, scientists could be able to clone the Woolly Mammoth back to life within the next three years. This has led me to start thinking about something.

It is plainly obvious that genetic engineering and cloning technology is now accelerating in complexity at a rapid pace. Meanwhile, it is commonly-accepted that humans' activities have caused the extinction of numerous species in the past, and might cause many more species to become extinct in the future.

Therefore, I propose that zoologists and geneticists all over the world should start a global DNA-collecting effort. We should try to sequence the genomes of many extinct species, as well as endangered species that might be in danger of becoming extinct in the near future. We should try to clone species that have become extinct as a result of human interference (such as the thylacine, the dodo, and the passenger pigeon), and if endangered species (such as the tiger) become extinct in the future, we should try to clone them, as well.

It is widely-recognized that humans are irresponsibly destroying the environment, and that this may have dire consequences if we don't change our behavior. In the worst-case scenario, almost all substantially-sized animals on Earth might become extinct within the next 500 years. If we can clone them back to life, perhaps we can help circumvent this worst-case scenario.