Resurrecting Spanish Ibex Attempted

Our science is steadily improving and restoration of species is becoming both plausible and increasing possible.  Yet as this shows us it is very much touch and go time.  Claims of a baby mammoth anytime soon appear somewhat optimistic. 

Yet the work is going forward everywhere and I expect to see extinct genomes to be completely extracted completely across the spectrum and that data makes resurrection plausible at least theoretically for all such recaptured genomes.

Recall we are now collecting the Neanderthal genome and the full range of the Pleistocene menagerie.  Getting all the curious birds lost over the past three hundred years should be also possible and plenty more besides.  The key now with cheap genome gathering possible is to really crank it up and to collect all possible genomic data.

It makes much more sense to me to have a collection of plant genomes rather than a collection of seeds in a cold vault. 

We may not quite be ready to manufacture the DNA but that is plausible in the not too distant future.

SCIENTISTS TO TRY TO BRING EXTINCT MOUNTAIN GOAT BACK THROUGH CLONING

UPI 11/23/2013 12:40:05 AM

ZARAGOZA, Spain, Nov. 22 (UPI) – 

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20131122-192844-6343

Scientists in Spain say they'll attempt to clone an extinct mountain goat using frozen, preserved cells taken from the last living animal before it died.

The species known as a bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex, went extinct in 2000, but cells from the last animal were collected and frozen in liquid nitrogen.

A previous attempt at cloning in 2003 saw a bucardo calf brought to term but it died shortly after birth. Despite that it was considered as an historic event, the first "de-extinction" in which a lost species or sub-species was resurrected.

Now researchers will make another attempt using the 14-year-old preserved cells from the last animal, which was named Celia.

"At this moment, we are not initiating a 'bucardo recovery plan,' we only want to know if Celia's cells are still alive after having been maintained frozen during 14 years in liquid nitrogen," Alberto Fernandez-Arias of the Center for Research and Food Technology of Aragon told BBC News.


If the cells prove to be intact, an attempt to clone embryos and implant them in female goats, researchers said.

"In this process, one or more live female bucardo clones could be obtained. If that is the case, the feasibility of a bucardo recovery plan will be discussed," Fernandez-Arias, head of the Aragon Hunting, Fishing and Wetlands Service, said.

One possible approach, researchers said, might be to cross a healthy female bucardo clone with a closely related sub-species such as the Spanish ibex and then selectively breeding the offspring to enhance traits typical of the bucardo.