{"id":131432,"date":"2025-08-09T09:59:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T09:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/131432\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T09:59:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T09:59:16","slug":"we-should-not-try-to-de-extinct-the-moa-a-12-foot-flightless-bird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/131432\/","title":{"rendered":"We should not try to \u201cde-extinct\u201d the moa, a 12-foot flightless bird."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

New Zealanders are engaged in a daily struggle to protect their isolated islands at the edge of the world. Visitors pass through a biosecurity gantlet at the airport, with specially trained beagles sniffing out such contraband as seeds, fruit, vegetables, meats, or honey. Border agents spray camping gear to kill contaminants. On a larger scale, the\u00a0government\u2019s Predator Free 2050 campaign<\/a> aims to eradicate all introduced predators by 2050 to allow native fauna and flora to thrive. As the in-flight Air New Zealand video<\/a> announces before you land, \u201cThis fragile place is all we\u2019ve got. \u2026That\u2019s why we guard it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason we\u2019re so defensive. Before humans, flightless birds like the k\u0101k\u0101p\u014d and kiwi thrived. The only native mammal<\/a> was a bat. When the M\u0101ori arrived 800 years ago, they brought dogs and rats<\/a>. Then, Europeans made things worse. They imported<\/a> possums for fur, rabbits to hunt for sport, then ravenous stoats to control the rabbit population. (Stoats look like ferrets and \u00a0kill not just one bird at a time, but entire nests.) So-called \u201cacclimatization societies\u201d introduced<\/a> hedgehogs to make New Zealand feel more like Great Britain.\u00a0Today, the New Zealand Department of Conservation calls<\/a> the hedgehog \u201cour most underrated predator,\u201d noting that just one of them \u201ccan cause an entire colony of endangered black-fronted terns to abandon their nests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Together, these imported creatures caused a mass extinction; nearly half of New Zealand\u2019s vertebrate species have disappeared since their arrival on the islands. Predators destroy an estimated<\/a> 25 million birds, chicks, and eggs a year, while 30 million possums gobble up 21,000 tons of vegetation a\u00a0night<\/a>, depleting the food supply<\/a> for native animals. Today, largely due to non-native animals, New Zealand has one of the highest extinction rates<\/a> of native species in the world. No wonder the federal government launched Predator Free 2050 in 2016 with an initial investment of $28 million. Since then, the initiative has attracted more funding and passionate participation, from the North Island to the South. While no city is free of predators, more than 100 offshore islands are, and more than 80 eco-sanctuaries protect native ecosystems.<\/p>\n

I live in Dunedin, a city on the South Island, and have seen firsthand how effective the war against predators has been. As a journalist and a volunteer, I\u2019ve set and checked traps called \u201cTrapinators<\/a>\u201d and \u201cMammalian Corrections Units<\/a>\u201d with Predator Free Dunedin, a conservation collective that has battled possums, rats, hedgehogs, and stoats since 2018<\/a>. Since then, more than 6,300 traps<\/a> have been set in and around the city, and more than 50,000 individual predators<\/a> have been eliminated. We know these animals are not malevolent, just trying to survive, and so the traps dispatch them with as little suffering as possible. They work: The long finger of the Otago Peninsula, once overrun with possums, is now almost free of them. Native birds such as kerer\u016b and t\u016b\u012b are returning to the city. Setting and checking traps, replanting native bush, checking corflute for teeth marks and the ground for scat\u2014it\u2019s muddy and exhausting work, and the road to a predator-free 2050 is long. But we\u2019re winning.<\/p>\n

So we should be wary of the shiny offer from Texas-based biotech firm Colossal Biosciences, which announced<\/a> in July that it intends to \u201cde-extinct\u201d the moa, a gigantic wingless bird that was killed off about 600 years ago. This is the same company that \u201cbrought back\u201d the ice-age dire wolf with financial help from Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. This project also has a high-profile partner in Sir Peter Jackson, the New Zealand film director behind Lord of the Rings.<\/p>\n

In a slick promotional video<\/a>, Jackson says that \u201cbeing extinct isn\u2019t really the end of the story.\u201d Various narrators explain that the \u201cnearly mythological\u201d moa inspires the imagination. Its return will be \u201cempowering\u201d and restore \u201chope\u201d as it supercharges conservation efforts and rehabilitates a vital piece of M\u0101ori cultural heritage.<\/p>\n

All that from a moa. Except it won\u2019t be a moa. In the case of the allegedly de-extincted \u201cdire wolves,\u201d what Colossal Biosciences actually produced were some gray wolves with 20 gene edits<\/a> to make them look more like dire wolves. The company\u2019s chief science officer, Beth Shapiro, has explained that they employ the morphological species concept<\/a>, which basically means: \u201cIf they look like this animal, they are this animal<\/a>.\u201d In other words, if I paint my cat to look like a fox, it is a fox.<\/p>\n

But, no, Sir Peter\u2014extinction really is the end of the story. The laboratory \u201cmoa,\u201d like the \u201cdire wolf,\u201d would similarly be a hybrid animal, not a clone. Colossal Biosciences would again edit the genes of a close living relative, such as the emu or tinamou<\/a>, and call it a moa. This will be a new creature, not an animal with native roots in New Zealand. This makes it yet another introduced species like the rat or stoat, with unpredictable behavior.<\/p>\n

Colossal Biosciences does not intend to unleash the \u201cmoas\u201d into the wild. The \u201cdire wolves\u201d live on a 2,000-acre preserve enclosed with zoo-grade fencing<\/a>. The flock of genetically engineered birds will be given, in Jackson\u2019s words, \u201ca natural environment as big as we possibly can.\u201d This is in a country the size of Colorado, and will effectively take space away from native species for what amounts to a roadside attraction. Meanwhile, beyond the gates and gawking tourists, stoats will gobble kiwi eggs and possums will devour our rata leaves.\u00a0Colossal Biosciences insists that what they are doing with their de-extinction projects is conservation. The fake moa effort isn\u2019t conservation at all. At best, it\u2019s a cheap (or, rather, expensive) distraction. I wonder if Colossal Biosciences has considered the possibility of their Frankenbird escaping the enclosure they envision. If an animal the size of a hedgehog can devour our native plants and insects, including the endemic and endangered w\u0113t\u0101 (a large flightless cricket), imagine what a mixed-gene bird the size of an emu could do as it crashes around the bush.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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    Colossal Biosciences views M\u0101ori people as primary beneficiaries of the moa\u2019s return.
    Their promotional video shows\u00a0M\u0101ori\u00a0performing a traditional poi dance and the haka, a ceremonial war dance, as project leaders laud the \u201ccomplete partnership\u201d between\u00a0M\u0101ori and Colossal Biosciences.\u00a0Yes, the company is working with the Ng\u0101i Tahu Research Centre, whose 18 researchers and lecturing staff foster Indigenous scholarship. However,\u00a0M\u0101ori\u00a0as a group constitute almost     18 percent<\/a> of New Zealand\u2019s population. Do\u00a0all\u00a0M\u0101ori\u00a0want the moa to return? Most M\u0101ori\u00a0 live in towns or cities<\/a>, and in communities that often face challenges such as housing deprivation<\/a> and low life expectancy. Does the moa mean the same thing to them in 2025 that it did 800 years ago, when it was an important source of food and material for making ornaments and tools? Claiming the moa is vital to\u00a0M\u0101ori identity\u00a0is like saying all Americans have a deep cultural connection to the flat-headed peccary that once roamed the Great Plains.<\/p>\n

    As we head into our planet\u2019s sixth mass extinction<\/a>, species nostalgia is understandable. We mourn what\u2019s lost. For some, de-extinction glows like a magic reverse button, a way to skirt tedious conservation efforts, an excuse to ignore the Endangered Species Act (as Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, a fan of Colossal Biosciences, has suggested<\/a> we do), and relax. But we can\u2019t get back to the garden. The best we can do is try to keep what we\u2019ve got, even if that means the unglamorous work of setting and checking traps, planting native bush, and requiring extra steps at the airport to make sure no one\u2019s smuggling in an unwanted creature.<\/p>\n

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