A warning from the Toronto Zoo CEO: Resurrecting the extinct dire wolf is an ‘incredibly dangerous’ move that comes with ‘enormous’ risk

CTV News science and technology expert Dan Riskin comments on the ethical concerns of a biotech company bringing back the extinct dire wolf.

The head of the Toronto Zoo called the decision by a U.S. company to genetically engineer three dire wolf pups an “incredibly dangerous” move that comes with “enormous” risk.

The wolf pups range in age from three to six months old, and researchers at Colossal Biosciences say they’re on track to reach 140 lbs at maturity.

Dire wolves went extinct more than 10,000 years ago and scientists at Colossal are referring to their achievement as a successful “de-extinction,” but not everyone agrees with the label.

“I don’t know if you can really call this a de-extinct dire wolf,” Dan Riskin, CTV’s Science and Technology Specialist, told CP24 in an interview. “This is real DNA from the extinct dire wolf that’s been put into living wolves. They took 20 different genes from the extinct one and put it into a wolf. But, if I took 20 genes out of an African wild dog and I put those into a labrador retriever, it would still be a labrador retriever.”

Riskin continued to say it is unfair to call these pups “full on dire wolves,” though they have some pieces of the breed’s DNA “spliced into them.”

Dolf DeJong, CEO of Toronto Zoo, echoed Riskin’s sentiments that this is not quite the return of dire wolves.

“I’d actually suggest this is the return of the circus,” said DeJong in an interview with CTV News Toronto. “It’s really doing some gene editing to hit a few phenotypes, the pieces of how an animal looks, and putting it back on the ground, and gray wolves being the key player in this story using their genetic material.”

‘Genetically quite different’

Gray wolves are the dire wolf’s closest living relatives that still exist today.

“They’re actually genetically quite different,” said Riskin. “Yes, they’re 99 per cent the same, but [humans are] 98 per cent the same as a chimpanzee, and I think we’re pretty different.”

Scientists at Colossal Biosciences said DNA was extracted from a 13,000-year-old dire wolf tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull fragment.

Blood cells from a living gray wolf were then taken and genetically modified before being transferred to an egg cell from a domestic dog. The embryos were then transferred to surrogates, also domestic dogs, and 62 days later the “de-extinct” pups were born.

Now, Colossal says they’re roaming around in an undisclosed, secure location in the U.S.

But despite some buzz around the achievement, DeJong says this kind of science can be risky and negatively impact the animals.

“It’s incredibly dangerous to be manufacturing animals in this way, without guidelines and standards that are clear that we all adhere to, and the risks are enormous, and that could be to (the dire wolves) and their wellbeing or, if they were released and get out, to animals that are already struggling,” said DeJong.

“There are no guardrails, there’s no structure, there’s no agreed to rules of engagement. This is greed and marketing personified under the name of conservation and it’s eroding good science.”

DeJong pointed to the fact that Colossal has previously announced similar projects to genetically alter cells from living species to create animals resembling extinct woolly mammoths, dodo birds and others.

“I think we should be super suspicious of an American for-profit that’s privately funded and manufacturing new species with no supervision, with no oversight, and (the animals) all seem to have strong ties to pop culture. They are not the individuals we need to have on the planet to help stabilize ecosystems.”

Alongside its dire wolf news, Colossal also reported that it had cloned four red wolves using blood drawn from wild wolves of the southeastern United States’ critically endangered red wolf population.

The community is ‘caught up with the hype’, DeJong says

The Toronto Zoo’s mission, according to its website, is to “connect people, animals, conservation science, and traditional knowledge to fight extinction.”

DeJong said he wants to make sure that the “hype” for the claimed “de-extinction” doesn’t overshadow current conservation efforts.

“I think our community is being caught up with the hype and the marketing and this propaganda machine, and not actually focusing on the core issue, which is the rate that species are going extinct in Canada and beyond every day.”

DeJong added that he thinks it’s an “incredibly scary time” for people, animals, ecosystems, and the future.

“We need to focus on our behaviors, our choices, our consumer choices, and be focused on animals that are still living, breathing, and walking on the ground today.”

With files from The Associated Press