Ice Age Mammoth: Will This Ancient Giant Come Back to Life?

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

This well-illustrated introduction to mammoths covers those found in
Siberia, how mammoths evolved, how they lived, their physiology, their
importance to early humans, their extinction, and the current importance
of mammoth ivory. Cloning mammoths is discussed in the book’s final
pages.

Barbara Hehner states that if scientists could just extract enough DNA
from a frozen mammoth, they could “bring these giants back from
extinction.” She follows with the statement that “the practical
problems are huge.” However, her sense of the problems seems to be
restricted to the difficulties of cloning or hybridizing offspring using
20,000-year-old mammoth sperm. Only two lines are dedicated to the
practical problems of having mammoths roaming around. Her answer to that
problem is that they should be released into Pleistocene Park, a
wildlife preserve in Siberia. (Perhaps Hehner should watch Jurassic
Park.)

This would have been a better book had it addressed the precautionary
principle and the bioethical issues surrounding species reintroduction.
Nonetheless, it can be used to spark discussions around cloning and
ecological restoration. Recommended with reservations.