So Chief Seathl continues to be ignored. He who warned that another heaven and another Earth must pass before [a species] could come into being again — what did he, a “mere” Indian, know?

No-one knows all the minute interactions between the extinct creature and its environment. As wolves make all things possible in Yellowstone, as foxes make it less likely a mouse can get near enough to humans to transfer Lyme disease, we can extrapolate that there were micro fauna that made the mammoth’s existence possible, and are also gone or dormant. The average person cares not a whit about the lowly life forms that made the big guys possible; some don’t even care about their own gut bacteria!

Here is yet another technology into which scientists have rushed half-cocked and which we will live to regret.

Mammoths will be killed off as fast as anyone can create them, the poachers’ uncaring and elitist customers no doubt salivating over the ivory to come. Or will mammoths be farmed? The world is not taking care of the elephants we have remaining, so what gives us the right to take up the habitat other still-living species inhabit, or to use those remaining pachyderms as mere mammoth incubators? Rather than spending any more money on reviving what’s long gone, we ought to press everyone to take care of what we have left!

Snatch an animal back from the brink of death? The revivalists pooh-pooh that very miracle which veterinarians perform every day, in favor of — something exciting! It would be cool to see sabre-tooth tigers, passenger pigeons, even dodos! Bring the whole bunch back from the grave! Damn the naysayers, not to mention the expense! Excitement trumps all!