
Can We Bring Back the Passenger Pigeon? - Hooke
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/04/20/resurrection-science-bring-back-passenger-pigeon/
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cjensen
The problem with the Passenger Pigeon is that it was very common everywhere,
and its behavior came to rely on this fact. An individual will leave its flock
and just assume it can find a new flock. Once the population level dropped
below a critical threshold, it was doomed.

The Rusty Blackbird has much the same problem, and the fear is that it may
have now dropped below its threshold.

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panglott
Well, their propensity to flock together and strategy of predator satiation
made them extremely vulnerable to commercial hunting. It also looks like they
suffered from the hunting equivalent of "panic logging": as the population
collapsed, the commercial hunters reliant on them struggled to be the last
hunter standing, rather than find another line of business before they went
extinct. [http://www.audubon.org/magazine/may-june-2014/why-
passenger-...](http://www.audubon.org/magazine/may-june-2014/why-passenger-
pigeon-went-extinct)

The same thing nearly happened to the bison; there were less than 300
individuals left in 1900, mostly preserved as private property by a few
individuals who wanted to save them from extinction. The Yosemite herd was an
exception, 23 individuals than managed to hide out in Yellowstone.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting#Resurgence_of_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting#Resurgence_of_the_bison)

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bcherny
I saw Ben Novak talk at the Interval last year.

He mentioned that a few animals have been resurrected in a slightly different
way already. Eg. the Red Factor Canary was resurrected by breeding a Domestic
Canary and a Red Siskin. Apparently the offspring had enough geno/phenotypic
resemblance to the original Red Factor Canary that this newly created lineage
was given that original name.

~~~
jkimmel
In George Church's book Regenesis, he recounts the interesting story of
resurrecting the Pyrenean Ibex by somatic cell nuclear transfer and surrogate
pregnancy in a closely related species. The source article is a great read
[0].

The animal that resulted died of lung complications shortly after birth, but
apparently veterinarians indicated that these complications were totally
within the norm of ibex ontogeny, and probably not a failing of the underlying
cell biology.

So, for just a few minutes, an extinct species was brought back to life.

[0] --
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19167744](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19167744)

~~~
aplusbi
The only species to go extinct twice.

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pvaldes
In Spain, obviously. After years of "I will not permit to add new blood with
hybrids with wild goat, because is a unique trophy that nobody will have
except us".

Even today the idea of add new blood to the remaining (and very inbreed)
populations of wild goats is often mission imposible blocked by hunter's
lobbies.

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lebanon_tn
I'll leave this here.

[https://flypigeon.co](https://flypigeon.co)

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bcherny
There's no way this is real, right?

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btilly
It is perfectly real and also a joke. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers)

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ionciobanu
I propose that we leave a dead flying pest alone and instead focus on how we
can reduce the population of the current pigeon infestation in all cities.

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asciimo
Can we _not_ resurrect this absurd topic? There's a lot of low-hanging fruit
we can harvest in terms of reducing our damage to existing species.

~~~
panglott
Perhaps it's overdiscussed here, but there are lots of important environmental
lessons that are worth reflecting on.

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sitkack
I like the idea that we can really mess things up and then use technology to
"undo" the damage. Pay it forward if you will. Maybe it could increase the
technological velocity of the human race just enough to get us out of this
mess.

~~~
panglott
More like, the loss is so enormous and consequential that even massive
technological efforts cannot reverse it.

I'm all for chestnut restoration and the Buffalo Commons and bringing back
woolly mammoths and Carolina parakeets and passenger pigeons, but these are
heroic efforts that are a drop in the bucket.

~~~
sitkack
We'll all have Carolina parakeets in cages and locally sourced Buffalo rugs
while we terraform mars.

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Profragile
Can we let nature run it's course and let species that go extinct go extinct
like they always have for billions of years?

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callinyouin
Lots of species have gone extinct due to the meddling of human beings, which
is something many might not consider to be nature running its course.

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asciimo
We're a part of nature like everything else in the universe. We happen to be a
sudden, violent shock to this planet's ecosystem. It happens. We can try to
diminish our impact on the future, but we should let those organisms who
couldn't adapt to our toxicity rest in peace.

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dragonwriter
> We're a part of nature like everything else in the universe.

So, then, whatever we choose to do—whether it is protecting species, ignoring
them, or exterminating them—is, equally, letting nature run its course.

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AndrewKemendo
How could it be otherwise?

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contingencies
No need, carrier-capable pigeons still exist. My family here in China keeps
pigeons and they are known to fly at least 1000km or so to return to their
roost. Beats using insecure devices with nominal encryption! No passports
needed to cross borders, either.

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ColinWright
So, you didn't actually read the article?

The "Passenger Pigeon" is a specific breed, and not just a generic term for a
pigeon that will carry messages.

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contingencies
Understandable perspective. Actually I did, I just felt the clickbait title
and reality outside of what-if-science was more interesting.

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fjdlwlv
You not knowing what a word means doesn't take it clickbait

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contingencies
Thanks for your amazing contribution to the discussion.

