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As more species are pushed to the brink of extinction, conservationists are responding to our biodiversity crisis in new and sometimes controversial ways. One such novel approach could be described as the mammoth in the room: “de-extinction” technology that has the potential to protect and restore species on the brink of extinction and, more provocatively, those that disappeared from the planet long ago.
We can avoid such innovation and the controversy that comes with it. But the reality is that many milestone moments in conservation have been contentious.
Take the California condor, whose population was down to 22 known individuals in 1982. At the time, taking all the animals out of the wild for a captive breeding program sparked outrage among conservation professionals and in local communities. Today, however, thanks to those efforts and subsequent reintroductions of the birds into the wild, their population exceeds 500. Now captive breeding programs are regularly used to maintain and restore a variety of threatened species.
Or consider conservationists’ difficult decision in 1995 to relocate eight female mountain lions from Texas to infuse new genes into the population of Florida panthers, a subspecies of the puma. Only about 30 Florida panthers were left at the time, and inbreeding had rendered them susceptible to disease and other health problems. Although this genetic rescue effort was highly controversial at the time, it was also very successful, decreasing the effects of inbreeding and allowing the population to steadily grow. Today about 200 adult panthers live in...