For thousands of years, the woolly mammoth has been known as an iconic part of the Ice Age. It was a massive, shaggy beast with thick fur, small ears, and a long, trunk-like nose. These prehistoric giants once roamed alongside early humans. But what if they were no longer just relics of the past?

In recent years, scientists have been working toward a groundbreaking goal: to bring the woolly mammoth back to life. A group of geneticists, led by Dr. George Church at Harvard University, has been working on a revolutionary project to revive the woolly mammoth. They are doing this by working with the biotech company Colossal Biosciences, a company co-founded in 2021 by Ben Lamb, to de-extinct mammoths using CRISPR technology and by genetically modifying Asian elephants to create a hybrid mammoth.

The project is controversial. There is an ecological argument for bringing back mammoths. Permafrost is a sheet of ice that has been frozen for over a thousand years. Over time, as fewer and fewer animals live there, carbon gets trapped, which creates heat and makes the world much hotter. Some scientists believe that restoring the woolly mammoth to the Arctic could slow climate change by preserving grasslands and compacting snow, which might keep permafrost colder.

Even if this proved to be true, however, de-extinction presents a number of moral questions. When a species’ natural habitat has undergone significant modification, some wonder whether it is morally acceptable to bring a creature back to a world so changed.

Others are concerned about the hybrid creatures’ welfare and whether they will be able to survive and even flourish in the Arctic wild. English teacher Kevin Estrada ’00 believes that “We shouldn’t bring them back,” and that “just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”

Conservationists also warn that concentrating on de-extinction initiatives will take money and attention away from preserving endangered taxa that are still in existence today—such as the African forest elephant or the northern white rhino.

Raiden Kagehiro ’28 thinks, “If we bring back woolly mammoths, I think it would fill a similar niche for large Arctic animals, and I don’t think it would make that much of a difference, and should prioritize expanding the areas they would roam.”

The effort to bring the woolly mammoth back to life is progressing in spite of the obstacles. With plans to produce the first mammoth around 2028, the biotech business Colossal Biosciences has invested millions of dollars in the project. If successful, these animals might be brought back to areas such as Pleistocene Park in Siberia, a conservation initiative that aims to replicate the ecosystems of the Ice Age.

Future efforts to revive other extinct species, like the dodo or the saber-toothed cat, may be influenced by this project’s success. Recently, Colossal Biosciences used novel gene-editing technology to alter gray wolf DNA. They say this led to the birth of dire wolf pups. Dire wolves, a species which has been extinct for more than 10,000 years, recently featured prominently in the HBO series Game of Thrones.

At the same time, Colossal also claims to have bred four cloned red wolves, the most endangered wolf species in the world, and claims that its technology could be used to help threatened animal populations across the globe rebound.

Science teacher Colleen O’Rourke concurred that Colossal’s technology could be used to “artificially increase genetic diversity for threatened species.” If this is true, Colossal seems to be attempting to balance a commercial purpose with a commendable ecological purpose. O’Rourke added that the purported dire wolves could ideally function as “a showstopping front to get money and build up their research and technology.”

Still, it appears doubtful if humans today will ever see true woolly mammoths wandering the Arctic tundra again. One thing is certain, though: this ambitious scientific project has the potential to fundamentally alter our knowledge of genetics, conservation, and the boundaries of human creativity.

The ambition of reviving a lost species offers a glimmer of hope in a world struggling with biodiversity loss. But it also raises a number of problems that science and society must jointly face. As geologist Elizabeth Brogna stated, “De-extinction can play a useful role . . . but it should be part of a broader conservation strategy, not a flashy replacement for it.”