The hows, whys and WTFs of bringing the moa back from the dead

The Spinoff

6 days ago

What do Peter Jackson, an iwi research centre and a Texas-based biotech firm have in common? They're working together on plans to 'de-extinct' Aotearoa's famous giant bird. Mirjam Guesgen explains what's going on.
The internet is fluttering with the news that a Texas-based company will bring back moa in Aotearoa – birds that haven't been seen in some 600 years.
Colossal Biosciences – the biotech firm that earlier this year announced it had resurrected the dire wolf – says it's planning to de-extinct moa within five to 10 years together with the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre at the University of Canterbury and financial backing from filmmaker Peter Jackson.
But while the online crowd is pecking at the shell with excitement, the same can't be said for some of the scientific community.
So what's the plan? Why do it? And why has the announcement ruffled the feathers of some scientists?
Is it even possible?
Kinda.
The biggest hangup that many scientists who have been interviewed have with the project is that it's not true de-extinction. 'Any end result will not, cannot be, a moa,' zoology professor emeritus Philip Seddon from the University of Otago told RNZ.
This comes down to semantics but, to be fair, Colossal does have a track record of over-hyping its achievements.
De-extinction as defined in lay circles means either recreating an organism that's extinct or creating one that resembles it. Colossal, however, has its own definition, which it dubs functional de-extinction: 'The process of generating an organism that both resembles and is genetically similar to an extinct species by resurrecting its lost lineage of core genes; engineering natural resistances; and enhancing adaptability that will allow it to thrive in today's environment of climate change, dwindling resources, disease and human interference.'
In short, creating a super-charged, modern version of an extinct animal. Anyone else having Jurassic World flashbacks?
So how would they do it?
The way we tend to think of de-extinction is a kind of cloning. Take DNA from an extinct species, copy it, pop it into a living surrogate animal and ba-da-bing! A walking, roaring animal, once extinct, is born.
Colossal's approach is different. They'll take DNA from moa bones and compare the genetic code to that of a closely related, living species. From there, they'll genetically engineer the genes of the related species to have some of the most 'moa-y' bits. This is what they did with the dire wolf, where they made 20 changes to 14 grey wolf genes.
But unlike the dire wolf, moa are a bit more complex. Moa is actually the name for a group of species – somewhere between nine and 64 of them. So that DNA they're taking isn't from one animal, it's from ' multiple ' (how many is unclear). The company will use those samples to understand what genetic changes give moas their moa-ness like large size or lack of wings.
Second, in the case of the dire wolf, the grey wolf served as both the template DNA and the surrogate. But moa's closest living relative is a (rather elegant) small, kind-of-weka/quail-looking bird called the elegant crested tinamou. Although its genetic goods fit the bill for gene editing, its small size means it won't fly as a surrogate. Instead, Colossal will likely use an emu.
It's important to have the right bird for the job because, if your goal is to create a kind of extinct-extant hybrid, then you want something as close as genetically possible for your base. On the other hand, having a chihuahua give birth to a great dane (so to speak) isn't good for anyone.
Why do it… or not
There's the obvious cool factor of seeing a creature that's been gone for more than 600 years. Peter Jackson himself is known for being somewhat obsessed with the birds, amassing the biggest private collection of bones anywhere. In a PR video for Colossal, he says 'we're not at the point where being extinct isn't really the end of the story'.
But there are other, scientific reasons for de-extinction. In fact, the IUCN (the global authority on conservation) outlines several defensible reasons for doing it.
One is to restore lost biodiversity and, in doing so, potentially protect other species who rely on this organism. That seems to be Colossal's main driver too. They're trying to undo the bad that we humans have done to other creatures on the planet or, as their website puts it, 'restoring the past, preserving the present and safeguarding the future'.
That goal in itself isn't limited to extinct animals. Scientists are already using ancient DNA to bring back species on the verge of extinction – like the northern white rhino or a Mongolian wild horse called Przewalski's horse.
The often-touted counter argument is that de-extinction takes the focus away from the conservation situation in front of us. Palaeontologist Nic Rawlence of Otago University told the NZ Herald: 'I think the money's much better spent conserving animals that we've got left.' Just bringing something back doesn't address the root cause of why these animals went away in the first place – and why other animals are endangered – aka habitat loss, climate change, pollution or poaching.
But Matt James, chief animal officer at Colossal, says it's not a one-or-the-other scenario. 'What's great about de-extinction is that it acts as an engine to drive conservation action that benefits not just the moa but other native species,' he said.
Aotearoa collaborators have hinted that there'll be a modern bird reintroduction element to the project, but haven't released any details yet. 'De-extincted species coupled with reintroductions of extant endangered taonga species will achieve ecological restorations of an immensely higher magnitude,' said Kyle Davis (Ngāi Tahu) of the Paenga Kupenga Centre.
The company hopes too that by exploring ancient moa DNA, they'll be able to find clues about how to make the de-extincted and living creatures more resilient to diseases or our warming planet. 'Along the way you've learned all these things you need to know to salvage populations that haven't gone extinct yet,' bioethicist and Colossal adviser Alta Charo said in a video by Colossal.
When Colossal researchers poked around in the woolly mammoth genome for example, they uncovered new information about elephant endotheliotropic herpesviruses disease that affects modern elephants. In other cases, studying ancient DNA from our ancestors and other extinct organisms has allowed scientists to understand today's diseases like multiple sclerosis.
Into the unknown…
There's a lot that's still undiscovered when it comes to de-extinction. That's part of the scientific appeal. But that also comes with risk.
Robert Klitzman, professor of psychiatry and director of the bioethics master's programme at Columbia University, suggested in Time magazine that the animals involved in surrogacy might suffer. 'There's a risk of death. There's a risk of side effects that are severe,' he said. How much suffering is involved in figuring out the genetics of de-extinction is up for debate.
And say the process works. You've got yourself a living moa-hybrid. Now where do you put it? The habitat where moa lived and the plants that it ate don't exist any more. Maybe this isn't such an issue with a hybrid, if it has a lot of the physiology of a tinamou, but it's still an issue of space. The dire wolf hybrids are currently living their lives in a secret 2,000-acre ecological preserve.
The eventual home of moa isn't decided but in a PR video, Peter Jackson describes putting moa 'into the natural environment as big as we possibly can', gesturing to some open farmland dotted with trees in the background.
It's an intriguing proposition: seeing moa roaming in the fields. What will it look like? Time will tell.