Louise Sallé, edited by Yanis Darras 10:09 a.m., February 09, 2023
After its disappearance in the 17th century, the Mauritian dodo could well be making a comeback on earth.
This is what the American company Colossal Biosciences promises, which wants to inject the genome of the bird into the nicobar pigeon.
But on the side of biologists, the argument of the remedy against the extinction of life advocated by the company, is not unanimous.
Will the dodo rise from its ashes?
Hunted by man until its extinction at the end of the 17th century, this bird, one meter high but unable to fly because of its small wings, could reappear on earth.
This is the bet of the American company, Colossal Biosciences, which is betting on the genome (all the genetic information of an organism) to resuscitate them.
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To achieve this, the researchers could inject this genetic material into the nicobar pigeon, a similar species.
Objective: to give descendants very close to the extinct bird.
"Molecular technologies are booming, like cloning, etc. So one day, we will be able to revive a thing that looks like a dodo", explains to the microphone of Europe 1 Benoît Fontaine, conservation biologist.
"Smoke"
Nearly 140 million euros have been invested in this project, intended as "a remedy for the extinction of life", according to its promoters.
“Announcing this project as a project to safeguard biodiversity is smoking,” nevertheless tempers the biologist.
Today, in Mauritius, only 2% of the territory still has forests that resemble what there was before the arrival of man.
So what are we going to do with it?
We're going to put them in zoos and we can't do anything with them afterwards.
It's not a conservation program, in the sense that we're not going to put them in the wild and then let them live," he concludes.
And the biologist assures us: the technological bet of Colossal Biosciences is a false solution to stop the rapid disappearance of wild species.