Rohini Krishnamurthy (RK): The “de-extinction” of dire wolves took 18 months. What enabled this quick timeline?
Beth Shapiro (BS): There is a lot of science that already exists, because the closest living relative of dire wolves is a gray wolf, which has been extensively studied. We could make progress more quickly on dire wolves than some of our other projects, like the mammoths, where we need to know a lot about elephant animal reproductive biology.
RK: What impact do you see from this project?
BS: We really believe part of the benefit from the dire wolf project is to bring attention to the plight of gray wolves and other species struggling for existence. Our dire wolf project has an immediate conservation impact, especially if we think about how we want to use genetic rescue, the idea of gene editing species, to help living species survive.
Throwing these animals [dire wolf proxies] out into the landscape and seeing what happens would be irresponsible. It is also not what we intended. If we are going to learn about how to use these technologies successfully, we need living animals that we can monitor and ensure are healthy and safe. We want to evaluate the technology for biodiversity conservation.
RK: How do you select which animals to de-extinct?
BS: We think about impact and the tools that exist now, the tools that would be needed to be developed, and their potential impact on conservation of living endangered species. We also think about communities—who would want to help take responsibility when these populations are eventually rewilded? Who wants to collaborate with us on developing plans for rewilding and long-term care? Are these species that communities of people who are impacted want back? For every one of our flagship species, we have local community groups to advise on things like timing, size and scope and help with regulatory questions.
As soon as people realise that we cannot have dinosaurs back, they ask: What about the mammoth?
I think this is because it is big and idealistic. It is a really cool idea. It is a species that we as people drove to extinction. It is the icon of a different ice age, and it really would be a showcase of technology if we could bring the animal back.
With the dodo, we knew that we needed to pick a bird because we needed to have tools to protect these species, some of the most endangered around the world. I thought the dodo was a great choice because I have been working in Mauritius for some time, and there are people who I know would be interested in collaborating on the dodo project. For me the dodo was the icon of human-caused extinction, and it is a really sort of sad emblem of the types of horrible things that people have done by accident in a lot of instances to different habitats. It is a good idea if we could reframe the dodo into an icon of the power of biotechnologies to help reverse some of the ways that people have been harming ecosystems around the planet and make them think imaginatively, creatively, and optimistically about a future that includes new tools to help augment what we can do to help protect and preserve species.
RK: How difficult is it to de-extinct birds like dodos?
BS: Birds have different set of technical challenges that need solutions, compared to mammals. Our project on dodos is still in progress. We are collaborating with academics from around the world to try to develop some of these new tools that we need.
Moreover, every species that is a candidate for de-extinction has a different set of challenges, from technical one like getting ancient DNA, making edits, and transforming edited cells into living animals to ecological, regulatory and ethical challenges.
This interview was originally published as part of the cover story Origin of Proxies in the May 1-15, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth