A new project backed by film-maker Sir Peter Jackson aims to bring the extinct South Island giant moa back to life in less than eight years.
The South Island giant moa stood up to 3.6 metres tall, weighed around 230kg and typically lived in forests and shrubbery.
Moa hatchlings could be a reality within a decade, says the company behind the project.
Using advanced genetic engineering, iwi Ngāi Tahu, Canterbury Museum, and US biotech firm Colossal Biosciences plan to extract DNA from preserved moa remains to recreate the towering flightless bird.
However, Zoology Professor Emeritus Philip Seddon from the University of Otago is sceptical.
“Extinction really is forever. There is no current genetic engineering pathway that can truly restore a lost species, especially one missing from its ecological and evolutionary context for hundreds of years,” he told the Science Media Centre.
He said a five to 10-year timeframe for the project provided enough leeway to “drip feed news of genetically modifying some near relative of the moa”.
“Any end result will not, cannot be, a moa — a unique treasure created through millenia of adaptation and change. Moa are extinct. Genetic tinkering with the fundamental features of a different life force will not bring moa back.”
Senior curator of natural history at Canterbury Museum which holds the largest collection of moa remains in the world, Paul Scofield, says he’s optimistic about the collaboration.
He says they hope to eventually have an ecological reserve on Ngāi Tahu land for moa.
However, the New Scientist magazine which questioned the Colossal Biosciences claims over resurrecting the extinct dire wolf earlier this year said it had been vindicated because the company’s chief scientist had conceded the animals were merely modified grey wolves.
The dire wolf was “the world’s first successfully de-extincted animal”, Colossal Biosciences claimed on April 7.
Weeks later, Colossal biologist Beth Shapiro said it wasn’t “possible to bring something back that is identical to a species that used to be alive. Our animals are grey wolves with 20 edits that are cloned”.
Professor Seddon said: “Despite Colossal Biosciences’ eventual reframing of dire wolf de-extinction as actually creating an ecological replacement using a genetically modified grey wolf, there is no hint in their recent press release that the best we can hope for is an ecological replacement for a New Zealand moa.”
One hundred per cent confidence in project
Colossal Biosciences chief executive and co-founder Ben Lamm said humans drove the moa to extinction so if technology could help bring it back and contribute to saving other existing species as well as inspire children it would be “the holy grail”.
Ngāi Tahu Research Centre would effectively be like a board of directors for the project, he told Morning Report.
While the business worked with conservationists and indigenous groups all over the world, “we’ve never had this level of cultural immersion before… the excitement here at Colossal is just palpable.”
Ngāi Tahu Research Centre would be the owners of the moa and would have a full input into everything being done.
The habitat still existed that the moa would live in, however, “we don’t expect them to be running through Christchurch.”
The project had only just started, however, he was confident that within a decade a moa hatchling would be a reality “and back on this planet”.
“I hope it’s closer to five or six [years] … worst case ten, but it’s still miraculous in terms of that technology curve.”
He was 100% confident moa would become a reality because the tools and technology existed.
“We’re just advancing them further.”
Sir Peter Jackson who is funding the project said he had assumed years ago that many scientific wonders would become a reality in his lifetime.
However, it hasn’t happened and he was impressed with the work of Colossal Biosciences which “has rekindled my hope for the future”, he said on the company’s website.
‘Astonishing leaps’
Scofield told Morning Report the project was “an astonishing opportunity”.
The US firm was world-leading in its field and was also trying to bring back the woolly mammoth, the dodo, the Tasmanian tiger and other extinct animals.
It was making “astonishing leaps on an almost daily basis”.
The museum’s main role was to ensure the project was Māori-led. It was working with the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre at the University of Canterbury and also ensuring all the concerns of Māori were addressed.
“The research will actually benefit Māori economically in creating a vast ecological reserve on Māori land where moa are actually are able to be seen.”
The necessary DNA would come partly from the remains at the museum but also from freshly excavated material.
The latter would be better quality because some of the former had been stored for 160 years.
“We’re hoping the combination of freshly excavated material and the collections themselves will enable us to have the genetic resources we require for this project.”
The process was called de-extinction because thousands of genes would need to be identified covering the moa’s size, brain capacity, feathers, colour, eyesight and other characteristics.
Then a related living species would be used as a genetic surrogate.
“Doing things that have effectively never been done before outside the human genome to actually recreate animals that are actually to all intents and purposes are exactly analagous to the extinct species.”
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