For more on why, see here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

To learn more about what works and doesn’t in litigating predator management, check out @alexerwin.bsky.social’s paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

And that’s all a shame. Because gene editing is a technology with significant potential for conservation. Not as a silver bullet or as an excuse to conserve less or destroy more, but as one tool in the conservation arsenal. 5/5

The Administration can use de-extinction or gene editing as a fig leaf for their cuts to the ESA, but that line of argument is not based on the reality of the science or the purpose of the ESA. And they are going to make those cuts regardless. 4/5

The ESA is supposed to conserve endangered species AND their habitat. Clearly allowing a species to go extinct because it can one day be brought back fails that dual purpose.

The same moral hazard argument can be made about cloning and even captive breeding programs. 3/5

The “dire wolf” isn’t back. They’ve created something that maybe looks and acts like a dire wolf. And that distinction matters if we believe we have a moral or ethical duty not to cause extinction or if we care about all the genetic diversity and evolutionary history lost. 2/5

I do in fact enjoy this!

Totally agree with the last point. The Interior Sec released this long statement about the agency’s support for the dire wolf “de-extinction”. It’s tonal whiplash from the way FWS plans on delisting gray wolves and turning them over to the states that want to eradicate them