Anyone interested in rare breeds knows the threat of dying out is never far away, but could new biotechnology mean the end of extinction? asks the Countryfile presenter <\/p>
The headlines were barely believable. \u201cScientists begin project to bring back the dodo\u201d is the stuff of fantasy, surely?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always been fascinated by the sad story of these flightless birds from Mauritius with their bulbous beaks. They died out in the 1690s, killed off by Dutch settlers who ate them, destroyed their forest habitat and introduced pigs, rats and dogs, which raided their nests for eggs. You don\u2019t need to have seen the model in the Natural History Museum<\/a> to know that the word \u2018dodo\u2019 is shorthand for extinction at the hands of mankind. As someone said: \u201cYou can\u2019t get deader than a dodo!\u201d<\/p>\n So I was intrigued when news broke about plans to resurrect history\u2019s most mysterious and tragic bird. But anyone expecting a Jurassic Park breakthrough was going to be disappointed. The story was about remarkable advances in gene-editing, a technique that can modify genetic material, and the information that has been gained from a DNA sample of a dodo specimen stored in Denmark. Researchers know the dodo\u2019s closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon from the Indian Ocean Nicobar Islands; the big question is whether the pigeon\u2019s genome can be edited to reflect the key traits of the dodo and how successfully it can be implanted into an egg cell.<\/p>\n #DidYouKnow<\/a> that a dodo de-extinction project has been announced?