{"id":50983,"date":"2025-07-09T08:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T08:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/50983\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T08:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T08:59:09","slug":"peter-jackson-backs-plan-to-bring-back-extinct-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/50983\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Jackson Backs Plan To Bring Back Extinct Species"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Filmmaker Peter Jackson<\/a> owns one of the largest private collections of bones of an extinct New Zealand bird called the moa. His fascination with the flightless ostrich-like bird has led to an unusual partnership with a biotech company known for its grand and controversial plans to bring back lost species. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Colossal Biosciences<\/a> announced an effort to genetically engineer<\/a> living birds to resemble the extinct South Island giant moa \u2013 which once stood 12 feet (3.6 meters) tall \u2013 with $15 million in funding from Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh. The collaboration also includes the New Zealand-based Ng\u0101i Tahu Research Centre. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe movies are my day job, and the moa are my fun thing I do,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cEvery New Zealand schoolchild has a fascination with the moa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside scientists say the idea of bringing back extinct species<\/a> onto the modern landscape is likely impossible, although it may be feasible to tweak the genes of living animals to have similar physical traits. Scientists have mixed feelings on whether that will be helpful, and some worry that focusing on lost creatures could distract from protecting species that still exist.<\/p>\n

The moa had roamed New Zealand for 4,000 years until they became extinct around 600 years ago, mainly because of overhunting. A large skeleton brought to England in the 19th century, now on display at the Yorkshire Museum, prompted international interest in the long-necked bird.<\/p>\n

Unlike Colossal\u2019s work with dire wolves, the moa project is in very early stages. It started with a phone call about two years ago after Jackson heard about the company\u2019s efforts to \u201cde-extinct\u201d \u2013 or create genetically similar animals to \u2013 species like the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf. <\/p>\n

Then Jackson put Colossal in touch with experts he\u2019d met through his own moa bone-collecting. At that point, he\u2019d amassed between 300 and 400 bones, he said.<\/p>\n

In New Zealand, it\u2019s legal to buy and sell moa bones found on private lands, but not on public conservation areas \u2013 nor to export them.<\/p>\n

The first stage of the moa project will be to identify well-preserved bones from which it may be possible to extract DNA, said Colossal\u2019s chief scientist Beth Shapiro.<\/p>\n

Those DNA sequences will be compared to genomes of living bird species, including the ground-dwelling tinamou and emu, \u201cto figure out what it is that made the moa unique compared to other birds,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Colossal used a similar process of comparing ancient DNA of extinct dire wolves to determine the genetic differences with gray wolves. Then scientists took blood cells from a living gray wolf and used CRISPR to genetically modify them in 20 different sites. Pups with long white hair and muscular jaws were born late last year. <\/p>\n

Working with birds presents different challenges, said Shapiro. <\/p>\n

Unlike mammals, bird embryos develop inside eggs, so the process of transferring an embryo to a surrogate will not look like mammalian IVF.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s lots of different scientific hurdles that need to be overcome with any species that we pick as a candidate for de-extinction,\u201d said Shapiro. \u201cWe are in the very early stages.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Colossal team succeeds in creating a tall bird with huge feet and thick pointed claws resembling the moa, there\u2019s also the pressing question of where to put it, said Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who is not involved in the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you put a species back into the wild once you\u2019ve exterminated it there?\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s exceedingly unlikely that they could do this in any meaningful way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be an extremely dangerous animal,\u201d Pimm added. <\/p>\n

The direction of the project will be shaped by M\u0101ori scholars at the University of Canterbury\u2019s Ng\u0101i Tahu Research Centre. Ng\u0101i Tahu archaeologist Kyle Davis, an expert in moa bones, said the work has \u201creally reinvigorated the interest in examining our own traditions and mythology.\u201d <\/p>\n

At one of the archaeological sites that Jackson and Davis visited to study moa remains, called Pyramid Valley, there are also antique rock art done by M\u0101ori people \u2013 some depicting moa before their extinction.<\/p>\n

Paul Scofield, a project adviser and senior curator of natural history at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, said he first met the \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d director when he went to his house to help him identity which of the nine known species of moa the various bones represented.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t just collect some moa bones \u2013 he has a comprehensive collection,\u201d said Scofield. <\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n

20 Years Of Free JournalismYour Support Fuels Our MissionYour Support Fuels Our Mission<\/p>\n

For two decades, HuffPost has brought you the exclusives, scoops and hot takes on the news all your friends are talking about. Support our mission<\/a> to keep us around for the next 20 \u2014 we can’t do this without you.<\/p>\n

We remain committed to providing you with the unflinching, fact-based journalism everyone deserves.<\/p>\n

Thank you again for your support along the way. We\u2019re truly grateful for readers like you! Your initial support helped get us here and bolstered our newsroom, which kept us strong during uncertain times. Now as we continue, we need your help more than ever. We hope you will join us once again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We remain committed to providing you with the unflinching, fact-based journalism everyone deserves.<\/p>\n

Thank you again for your support along the way. We\u2019re truly grateful for readers like you! Your initial support helped get us here and bolstered our newsroom, which kept us strong during uncertain times. Now as we continue, we need your help more than ever. We hope you will join us once again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Support HuffPost<\/a><\/p>\n

Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.<\/a><\/p>\n

20 Years Of Free Journalism<\/p>\n

For two decades, HuffPost has brought you the exclusives, scoops and hot takes on the news all your friends are talking about. Support our mission<\/a> to keep us around for the next 20 \u2014 we can’t do this without you.<\/p>\n

Support HuffPost<\/a><\/p>\n

Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"FilmmakerFilmmaker Peter Jackson, left, and Colossal CEO Ben Lamm hold up bones from Jackson’s collection of extinct moa bones in Wellington, New Zealand, 2024. (Courtesy of Colossal Biosciences via AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Filmmaker Peter Jackson owns one of the largest private collections of bones of an extinct…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":50984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[17219,6026,38351,38349,23133,38353,32757,38352,159,38350,67,132,68,2058,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-50983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-colossal-biosciences","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-fran-walsh","11":"tag-lord-of-the-rings","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-ngai-tahu-research-centre","14":"tag-peter-jackson","15":"tag-peter-jackson-backs-plan-to-bring-back-extinct-species","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-south-island","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-washington","22":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114822458068056646","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}