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Letter: Two more views on talk of species de-extinction (1)

Published 27 August 2025

From John Woodgate, Rayleigh, Essex, UK

I look at de-extinction this way: people interested in wildlife regret extinctions, especially human-caused ones. They would like to atone. Attempts have already been made to produce, for example, aurochs-like cattle just by selective breeding. If de-extinction results in creatures that resemble extinct species and can live and thrive in the present, there is no harm done. Such animals may differ less from the extinct species, in terms of expressed genes, than one breed of dog differs from another(9 August, p 7).

Issue no. 3558 published 30 August 2025

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