Will we be seeing Carolina Parakeets in the wild soon?
You may have heard of the ongoing research of Dr. Marvin Cambrich at Cornell University, working to isolate usable DNA to try and "bring back" extinct species of animals, specifically birds. Dr. Cambrich and his team of researchers have spent the better part of the last decade working on a project dubbed "Carolina", that sounds like a real life rip off of Jurassic Park. This week it was announced that an upcoming issue of National Geographic is going to feature a story talking about the project, and its apparent first successful product. Details are murky, but the following quote was available form Cornell's website directly from Dr. Cambrich:
The news is very exciting. We can't say what we've done yet, but very soon the details will be released and what we have done will change science forever.
Rumors have been swirling in the online birding world for the past few days that the team of scientists have actually been able to birth a Carolina Parakeet using another species from the Arini family, specifically in the closely related genus Psittacara. To spare you my explanation check out this posting on the birding forum talking about the ground breaking technology believed to have been used for this. It's freaking amazing!
Post from John Thomasson on Birding Forum
Seriously crazy stuff going on out there!
4 Comments:
There was a National Geographic awhile back that went into to detail about how they would or could bring back extinct animals. This article also delved into the ethics of bringing these animals back. Wouldn't it be awesome to restore some of the animals we as humans have wiped from the planet.
If one remembers the passenger pigeon, which is now extinct, it does not take the human killing of all of the species in order to extinct a species. When the population dropped below a certain number, the birds stopped breeding. Unless one brings back sufficient numbers of a formerly extinct specie, it will again become extinct as there is not a large enough breeding population. It seems to me we should put more effort into preserving the existing species, at least before reintroducing extinct species.
@Mark Patternson:
Mark, did you read the blog post and click through the link "Post from John Thomasson on Birding Forum"? This was an Aril Fools Day post.
Cheers
Tim
Welcome to the Budgie / parakeet forum. Please do tell us about yourself, your parrot and post & photos. Sing up now today at justparrot.com.
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