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OT: Bringing Back Animals From Extinction

Dinosaurs may be out of reach due to their DNA 🧬 degrading too much. But one sad case I think of is the Stellar’s Sea Cow. A giant manatee that lived around the Aleutian Islands. Discovered by a shipwrecked explorer named George Stellar and his crew in 1741. It was hunted to extinction a mere 27 years after being discovered and in 1768 were erased off the planet. Hunting techniques were wasteful and inhumane, spearing the whale sized creatures and hoping there carcasses would drift to shore. One tragic detail that stood out to me.

“ The hunt was made easier because, as Steller noted, the sea cows had “an uncommon love for one another, which even extended so far that, when one of them was hooked, all the others were intent upon saving him,” making the rest of the group ready targets. Steller also observed that when a female was killed, her mate made daily visits to the beach where her body remained, “as if he would inform himself about her condition.” https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/never-f…

Jesus. Some creatures are too much like humans to hunt. Another example is the Baiji, a Chinese River Dolphin that perished in 2006 due to pollution in the Yangtze River. It would be nice to see us right some of the wrongs of the past and bring some these animals back.