One Company’s Mammoth Solution to End Climate Change

Opinion

by Olivia Tarantella, B.S. in Zoology

Woolly mammoth, climate change, permafrost, Siberian tundra, grasslands; the company Colossal is ready to bring back the woolly mammoth, saying the changes they’ll bring to their tundra environment will help offset climate change. However, climate change won’t stop with mammoths, and Colossal might be throwing their money away.

In September 2021, a company named Colossal announced they are putting $15 million towards reviving the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) from extinction. Their plan is to edit elephant embryos to be more mammoth-like, giving them dense fur and layers of fat to keep warm on the Siberian tundra. They’ve lauded this plan as a great idea to counteract climate change, as they claim the mammoths will alter the biome in such a way that the permafrost won’t thaw.

However, many people, scientists and civilians alike, have concerns about how the procedure might affect the elephants used in their experimental process. After all, in vitro fertilization has not yet worked when it comes to elephants. Instead, they will need to create an artificial womb to implant the embryos in, which is a very costly procedure all on its own.

Given the difficulties that arise before the project even begins, many have pointed out more concerns with the idea of de-extinction and woolly mammoths.

What Will They Eat?

Some have argued it might be better (and easier) to start with trying to revive more recently extinct animals, like the Thylacine, passenger pigeon, or the western black rhinoceros. These animals have gone extinct within the last few decades, as opposed to 10,500 years ago.

After all, the world has changed a lot in 10,500 years. While the expansion of humans and their technology has been one of the most stark developments, another important change is that the plant species found on the world have changed dramatically since the mammoths’ time. Woolly mammoths ate mainly grasses and sedges (a grasslike plant with triangular stems, growing typically in wet ground). A study has found that warming after the Pleistocene (when mammoths lived) caused a complete change in their ecosystem, turning their grasslands into boreal forests. Plant species richness (number of species in a given area) devolved over time, meaning the wooly mammoth’s food might not be around anymore..

In the time since the mammoth’s have gone extinct, the ecosystem has been evolving. Much of what mammoths would have eaten 10,500 years ago is gone or changed significantly. Not to mention that as of right now, we are only bringing them back as modified elephants. The company, Colossal, plans on inserting Asian-mammoth hybrid embryos into an African elephant surrogate. They’ve cited on their website that the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is closer genetically to the woolly mammoth, but they want to lessen pressure on existing populations of the endangered species, so they’ll use African elephant surrogates (though they didn’t state which species of African elephant they plan on using) for the risky surrogate procedure.

If the “mammoths” could find something to eat, they could restructure the land like the original woolly mammoths did. They could uproot trees and turn the forest back into a mammoth-steppe, a type of grassland with grasses and shrubs able to survive a cold, dry habitat. In fact, this is part of Colossal’s plan to combat climate change, as they say grasslands will be better for the climate.

What exactly is Colossal’s climate plan? Currently, the ground of the Siberian tundra is covered in a layer of frozen soil called permafrost. This keeps the ground too cold for microbes to effectively break down decomposing plant and animal remains, a process which usually produces carbon dioxide. So, all of those remains accumulate in the ground. If the permafrost thaws, the microbes will start the process of decomposition, and all of the carbon that would come from hundreds of years’ worth of decomposition is released at once into the atmosphere, like a greenhouse gas bomb. Colossal claims that grassland would slow the thawing of permafrost as compared to boreal forests, but finding sources backing this claim is difficult.

There isn’t much literature on how forests affect permafrost, or how a grassland is preferable to forests when it comes to the issue of thawing permafrost. It seems ground cover is important, protecting the permafrost from the sun’s heat and UV rays. Trees provide that just as well as low-growing grasses and lichens.

Despite the large-scale manipulation of a landscape being the heart of their plan, Colossal has not given a statement about what they will do to mitigate the loss of boreal forest. They have decided that giving life to mammoths is worth the habitat loss for the countless species already living in this environment that has endured for thousands of years. They will say it’s worth it for the impact this will have on climate change, but the truth is that even if this plan is successful, that impact will be very small.

Colossal does not ever draw attention to the fact that a thawing permafrost is an effect of climate change as well as a possible contributor. As climate fluctuates and average temperature rises, the permafrost will likely thaw regardless of the plant life covering it. This plan will, at best, only buy time.

There is a current project wherein musk oxen, reindeer, yaks, and other hoofed animals wander a 16-square kilometer area called Pleistocene Park to test if this is a possible outcome of woolly mammoths returning. Results are still pending, even though this park has been working on this project since 1996. It has been over 20 years and we still don’t know if introducing large herbivores to Siberia will offset climate change. If woolly mammoths could be brought to the park in 5 years, we’d be waiting another 20, 25, 30 years for the plan to pay off, if it ever does.

How Many Do You Need?

The plan, which might not even work, doesn’t come cheap. Even making one “mammoth” is a costly procedure in terms of time and money. But one mammoth is not enough for a stable population. Neither is ten. They need thousands, because inbreeding can be catastrophic for a species.

Individuals can suffer from inbreeding depression – a reduced fitness as a result of inbreeding. Genetic variation that comes with a large population allows for multiple “backup plans,” wherein a subset of the population is more likely to have genes that provide immunity against diseases or might give advantage if the environment changes. Inbreeding means you are working with a very limited gene pool, and these subsets are less likely to exist. It also means genetic disorders become more common.

We already know of a late population of woolly mammoths that suffered from inbreeding depression. They died out about 4,000 years ago, surviving the majority extinction of their species on isolated islands. Even with a population of a few hundred, they suffered from inbreeding’s effects as there was no gene flow from an outside population, which is usually how species bolster their genetic variation. According to the journal Genome Biology and Evolution, the researchers found these mammoths had issues with fertility, their metabolism, and may have struggled to find food.

For de-extinction to work, we’d need multiple populations of a few hundred mammoths each. They would cost a good deal of money, though we aren’t sure how much. $15 million has already been raised for the project, but it’s uncertain what that money will go towards, or how much more money Colossal might need by the end of it all.

Instead of putting that money towards scientist-recommended measures, like creating new technology to harness solar energy or cleaner-running modes of transportation, Colossal has chosen to take a large gamble with the future.

Climate Change Won’t Go Away

Permafrost thawing is only one cause of climate change. Woolly mammoths will not stop air travel or convince CEOs to go green. This will not stop climate change in its tracks on its own, meaning we are gambling with the lives of animals we brought back to life. Our resources could be better spent making the world a suitable place for the animals who already live here.

Making smart, environmentally-minded decisions is not easy. Proposed solutions may look good on paper, they may seem like beautiful ideas at first glance, but we must look past the illusion. We live in a real world, with climate change and fragile ecosystems already being torn apart. Not discussed in this article were other problems with the mammoth idea, like the potential of poachers. Ecology is complicated, more complicated than recycling and zero-waste. These solutions require deep, critical thought, not money throwing.

De-extinction is an intriguing thought, containing a lot of potential. But we need to prioritize. Let’s handle climate change first. Let’s handle habitat fragmentation first. Then, maybe, if we take baby steps and make smart decisions about this whole process, just maybe, we can live in a world where ivory-billed woodpeckers drum on trees, and mammoths wander the Siberian steppes.