Dire Wolf Brought Back? The Wild Science and Ethics of De-Extinction

0:00 Did a company bring back the direwolf? Is it de-extincted, I guess is the question. That's the big question around everything. And I know you're thinking, Andrew, this is an ocean podcast. Like why are we talking about wolves in this? Well, one, wolves are cool. We always love to talk about that. I'm a Game of Thrones fan. So dire wolves, obviously a great topic to discuss on an ocean podcast. But what we're gonna be talking about today on this episode is we're gonna be looking at the questions surrounding like bringing back species. Is it a good idea to do it? First of all, de-extinct, is it an actual direwolf species? And what are the implications for the ocean? That's what we're gonna be talking about on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

0:40 Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to this exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you could speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. On today's episode, we have a great one for you. We have Dr. Gabby Monstrum-Monaco who is here today from the Toronto Zoo. She is the chief scientist at the zoo and she's also in charge of the cryogenic bank at the zoo where they actually have sperm and embryos from over 400 different species of animals that are at the zoo and outside of the zoo to help preserve genetic diversity.

1:23 Now I asked her on the podcast not only to talk about that because it works well with the direwolf thing because we're talking about genetics, but I wanted to get her opinions, her scientific opinions about what has happened with this news about bringing back and de-extincting the direwolf. Is it a direwolf? Is it considered a direwolf? And why are scientists so obsessed about saying, "Hey, you know what? It's not a direwolf. Why are we so worried about that?" And also it doesn't matter when the whole context of things. Then we're gonna ask the question, "Hey, what are the implications for conservation? Are they actually gonna release these species? What if they get out from their enclosure right now?" We're talking about wooly mammoths coming back.

2:03 There's a lot of questions that we have to answer and I wanted to get Gabby on because she has the expertise to talk about. She has the knowledge of this. She's done read the papers. She's written papers. And I think it's really important that we get somebody with the expertise on the podcast to talk about it. So that's what we're gonna be talking about today. I can't wait for you to listen to this interview with Dr. Gabby Mastrovodico from the Toronto Zoo. Enjoy and I will talk to you after. Hey Gabby, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about genetics and de-extinction? Hi Andrew. Yes, I am. Thank you for having me here today. You bet. Now this is a lot of fun. This is the first time I've had, Gabby. This is the first time I've had you on this podcast, but we have a bit of a history. I interviewed you for the Wild4Life podcast, the Toronto Zoo podcast a couple of years ago.

2:48 That was a lot of fun. We talked about what a little bit of what we're gonna be talking about today, talking about the Toronto Zoo's work with the cryogenics lab and the work with preserving genetic diversity and in some cases producing animals from in vitro fertilization. We're gonna talk about your work on that because it's groundbreaking. It's a lot of fun to talk about, but I asked you on the podcast today because obviously the news has been flooded with this idea of de-extinction and with these dire wolves or gray wolves that have been genetically altered, however you wanna see it, however it's been presented, has just dominated the news in a news cycle that's been pretty bleak lately with the economy and everything like that. So it really brought attention.

3:29 It's a topic of a lot of conversation among scientists and among the public. So what I wanted to do is have you once is you have such a great experience in this research area and I want to get your thoughts on the idea of de-extinction and of course, repopulation of these animals that have been coming into play. So we're gonna talk all about that, which I can't wait to get into. But before we do, Gabby, can you just let us know who you are and what you do? Absolutely. So I'm Gabby Master Monaco. I'm the chief science officer at Toronto Zoo and also the reproductive biologist for the zoo. So I'm in this really unique and lucky privileged position where I not only get to focus on the reproductive science that had been done at the zoo, but my position has grown a little bit to look over all the sciences.

4:19 So animal wellbeing, health, welfare, nutrition, and of course reproduction and the field teams, the species recovery teams. So because it's working together that we can do good things. And this is what I love about the zoo. When I started podcasting for you guys, I really learned about that the zoo is not just a place where you go in and look at animals. That's just one aspect of it. What I like to call it is it's a conservation organization. It's a facility that facilitates the conservation of the animals, not only that you house, but other animals locally and so forth and have programs with the community, have programs really all around the world. And that's what I love about the zoo.

5:00 And so I really appreciate the work that you do and congratulations on the expansion of that position that you were in, much is well deserved. And I know that they are going to be, the people there are going to be, not only the members of the zoo, but also the people who are there for the zoo, the staff and stuff that are going to enjoy what you do. And so I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. And I know I asked you last minute to come on because we're going to talk about this idea for de-extinction. But what I want to first get into is just kind of give an idea of what you do, like the cryogenics lab and the purpose of the cryogenics lab at the zoo. Can you tell us a little bit about sort of like a brief history of like how it started, why it started and then what you do with all the things at the cryogenics lab?

5:46 So you've hit on one of my favourite topics and I'll try to be succinct about it. But so obviously Toronto Zoo has the only reproductive science program in a zoo in Canada. And so I mean, preserving genetic diversity can be done in a number of different ways. We can naturally breed animals and release them into the wild. But at Toronto Zoo, we also use alternative strategies, which is assisted reproduction as well. And because we work with artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, producing embryos. But the most important thing of all of that is that we can freeze them as well.

6:27 So storing in liquid nitrogen means that that genetic material that is present today can be captured forever. As long as we monitor those tanks and look after them, we can take the snapshots in time of the species that are around. So our biobank is 40 years old. I'm trying to do the math in my head. 40 years old. Yeah, pushing. Yeah, 40 years old, 1980, right? Just yeah, just over 40 years old. And we've been diligently not only cryopreserving samples from our own animals, we support zoos across Canada. And of course, samples from the wild that that's the new area that we need to get into and have started working on.

7:13 Now, when we talk about this genetic material, like this DNA that's preserved, we're talking about intact DNA. Like this is not just DNA that's taken from a fossil or taken from something that's been that was, you know, died 10,000 years ago or plus this is we're talking about things that have that like DNA material that's intact that have been taking over the last 40 years because that's how long like, you know, within that that time span. So like if you were to unfreeze it and I know obviously I'm simplifying that the process here, but if you were unfreeze some of that genetic material, that genetic material would be intact if you want to use it, correct? So that is the important distinction. There's a lot of wildlife biobanks around the world.

7:56 Our amazing Canadian Museum of Nature has Canada's biodiversity biobank. But when you're thinking of that DNA, whether it's ancestral or modern DNA, it's just frozen dead material. So you can get DNA out of it. But the cryobank or biobank at the Toronto Zoo has living cells, living sperm, living embryos, living skin cells from which we can just take DNA to sequence it or whatever we want to do with it. But we can also create offspring. So with with that, that nice clean modern living cells that are frozen away, we can apply the reproductive technologies that are available to us.

8:44 That's amazing. If we just talk about the bison program, because this is something that I brag to people about because I'm so proud, not only to be from Toronto, but to be Canadian to be just say like, hey, this has happened locally. And it's not an easy thing to do. This is something that takes years and years of research. But can you talk about the program and what it's been able to accomplish? You know, it's been a it's been a long ago. We started 2007, 2008. So we're looking at over 15 years of really methodical and diligent trials, not only at Toronto Zoo, but this is a really important partnership with University of Saskatchewan and Parks Canada.

9:25 And of course, partnerships and collaboration are the foundation of good research and good conservation. So, you know, we were interested in the challenges that were happening in the wild with the disease issue. Of course, there's some really genetically valuable animals that have tuberculosis, brucellosis. And we knew that we could take sperm, embryos, we can hopefully disinfect them of those diseases and bank clean genetics. So clean living sperm and embryos that can be used in the future to repopulate these disease free herds. And and there's been a couple of really important firsts that come out of this project.

10:06 But of course, at Toronto Zoo, a few years ago, you might remember we had a calf born a bison calf born from sperm that had been frozen for 35 years. And that is the oldest, like living sperm frozen that resulted in a live calf from artificial insemination. So and that would mean again, just to simplify, that would mean so you took that that sperm from 35 years ago, you inseminate into an embryo and then a bison like a female bison carried that that fetus and then gave birth. Is that correct? Yes. So in this case, we didn't make the embryo in the lab, but so we thought this 35 year frozen sperm, we put it into the female who was synchronized to the right time of the cycle. And she carried the embryo in the fetus to term.

10:57 It's it's so funny when you say it because every time you say is like the timing had to be perfect. You know, you're looking at this, you know, you don't want to waste the sperm. Obviously, it's it's very valuable from a genetic diversity standpoint. Plus, like the age of it and and just sort of the sensitivity of the process itself. And it's just amazing how this is what happened. We got we got a bison now in the purpose of this program and many other programs at the zoo is to preserve genetic diversity to preserve the species. So one of the things that the zoo does and many other zoos in North America is they they team up and and try to mate animals of the same species that have a optimal genetic diversity.

11:38 So if they made it, they would like that offspring would have that optimal diversity so that you can preserve the different genetic diversity. Can you talk about the importance of preserving that genetic diversity within a species? Yeah, so I really like how you describe that we we take a lot of care in how we pair the animals so that we make sure there's no inbreeding and they're they're genetically diverse. But the importance of genetic diversity is the long term health of the population. So you need genetic diversity to be able to adapt to changing environments.

12:18 You need genetic diversity to stay healthy, to have good immune systems, to combat disease and natural changes or anthropogenic. So human induced changes as well. So yeah, genetic diversity is is the foundation of long term success. Yeah, it's a it's a conservation staple to you, right? When you talk about species diversity, we talk about community diversity, ecosystem diversity, but really down when you get down to it, it's that genetic diversity to make sure that population could be stable. And I really appreciate the amount of work that your team, you and your team have done, as well as your partners with the universities and Parks Canada have done to help preserve and help, you know, I guess, conserve this population of bison.

13:04 And hopefully one day when that disease is eradicated in in the wild, or it's it's gotten to a manageable point. The goal is to take the bison of that have that do not have the disease in the zoo that you've been able to successfully breed and put them into into the wild. Is that correct? Yes, so ultimately, I mean, the whether it's in the biobank or whether they're in managed settings like zoos, these animals are the insurance for those future reintroductions. Now, sometimes reintroducing a species does not happen right away, because we've got to look after the habitat, we've got to make sure they're somewhere proper to put them back so that they survive.

13:48 And with that, too, is another thing I learned at the zoo. It's the nutrition aspect, right? Is can that population hold enough enough animals that will maintain that population? You don't want to repopulate if there's not enough food or not enough resources available for that species to to survive. And there's a lot that goes in a lot of calculations, a lot of theoretical biology that goes on to be able to to understand that. And I think the nutrition department at the Toronto Zoo is very active in those calculations for other species that I think is is just wonderful. Now, let's get into the this is great. I really appreciate you coming on to talk about that because that's what I wanted to to get to get the audience to understand your background, your specialization and expertise.

14:32 You obviously know that and you've been already talking to the news about this new project, I guess it's a company called Colossal. They've come out with an announcement that they've produced, quote unquote, three dire wolves. Now, the media and the marketing aspect of it, you have to respect it. They're coming out saying that these are dire wolves and we've successfully de-extincted these three. Like we brought the dire wolf back. That's a lot of the the for the first couple of days anyway, or even the first day. That was a lot of the titles on on Time magazine. I think it had extinct and then they put a cross. They put a red highlight marker around it and then they had the dire wolf there. Now, obviously, it's it's it's from it from. Well, actually, I should ask you from from a scientific point of view.

15:23 This is pretty phenomenal, right? Is this is this something that's like this is incredible that we were able to do this as scientists is to inject the dire wolf DNA into a gray wolf DNA and to be able to produce an animal that has dire wolf DNA. That's pretty incredible, right? So, obviously, there's a lot of parts to this big, big picture here. The techniques that were done are very impactful and obviously, the funding and staffing resources at Colossal, they were able to to ramp up these technologies very quickly, what might have taken, you know, a zoo or a university longer to do.

16:11 So, so, so technologically speaking, these are very important advancements for science in general. Right. Gotcha. Yeah. Now, one thing that I always I always find interesting. You mentioned like they had the resources, the financial resources to really accelerate that process to be. I looked at the number was 435 million dollars. Now, we biologists salivate at that amount of money. You know what I mean? Because as you well know, that goes a long way in conservation, not restoration, but in conservation. It takes a lot of money.

16:51 It always is more expensive when you restore a habitat or you restore species in this case, right? 435 million dollars to get this thing started. Who knows how much is going to cost for other species? And maybe that will get cheaper if this continues on. That's a topic that we'll talk about in a bit. But I feel as though, you know, that's a lot of money that could be put towards other things in conservation, which we'll get to in a little bit. But the science of it, you're right. I feel like it's pretty cool that we were able to do that. Now, the question I ask you and you're like, I feel you have the expertise to really answer this and I'm sure you've thought about a lot of the ethical ways and even the scientific ways of how do we, you know, consider this a dire wolf species, right? Because if you if you really think about the information that's come out that a lot of people probably know is that, you know, this this chain of DNA that the Grey Wolf has is probably like, you know, 22 to 23,000 genes within the DNA.

17:48 And this is an estimate. This is what I'm getting off of reports. I don't know for sure. But this is around the thing. They did like, I think it was like, it was either like 20 different changes to 14 genes or 14 different changes to 20 of those segments. So very, very small percentage of the Grey Wolf was altered of the DNA, a Grey Wolf, the day it was altered for dire wolf characteristics. So, from a scientific like taxonomy point of view, what do we consider is this considered like a new species or the dire wolf species? How do is it? Are there like certain regulations or credentials that that scientists follow that will that we would say, yes, this is a dire wolf species or no, this is just a genetically altered Grey Wolf species.

18:38 That is very important question. And I think people need to understand the the regulatory part of it and and then can make up their mind. So, you know, science is very methodical and the definition of species, how years ago it was based on morphology. And I think we've moved away from that because we know that morphology doesn't give you the entire picture. So now we are using genetics to make sure that they're different species. Doing it was 20 edits on 14 genes. I always get those mixed up. But minuscule minuscule. Yeah. Yeah, it really is just genetic modification. It is not a new species. And if you think, as an example, I have a Maltese at home, right? My Maltese is not a great day. But I'll guarantee there's you know, 20 size and co color edits between the Maltese and the Great Dane, maybe 50, maybe 10.

19:43 But but to do morphology based changes and then declared a new species is not telling the full truth. A species is much more complex than co color and size. And I think that's what they were according to a lot of the PR and a lot of the articles that Colossus, the colossal came out with. So not necessarily with where other scientists were like yourself or other other experts were commenting on it. This is what they put out as their as their PR, you know, a lot of them saying we just want to see if we could make a dire wolf like our species that would express the dire wolf gene. So having I think they said a main or even being like six feet long, I think are some of the characteristics that that they that they discussed.

20:30 They they never actually came out and said this is a dire wolf species. However, a lot of the media came out and saying, hey, the dire wolf is back, the dire wolf back. And of course, the dire wolf is very popular in in the Game of Thrones version. They even had George R.R. Martin, you know, as part of the photo shoot, he even cried when he saw them and they're beautiful puppies. Like, let's be honest as animal lovers, you know, you want to hug them and you want to play with them. However, there, you know, there was I think a lot of scientists are up in arms because, you know, people are calling this, you know, they brought back the dire, the dire wolf. That's not the case. Correct? Is that like from a scientific point of view, they didn't bring back a dire wolf, right?

21:14 Correct. So one to say to announce that, you know, some really amazing lab experiments were done. Really, what the advancement is, is the ability to edit more than one gene or low site at a time. So they made 20 edits at the same time. That's that's called multiplex gene editing spectacular. I mean, that that is an advancement. The challenge scientists are having is to say that anything was resurrected or de extincted, or even that it is a different species is really, you know, skewing the reality of what a species is.

21:58 Right. So if we're going to, you know, there's a pop culture involved here, you said it, this is Game of Thrones land, which I sadly didn't watch, but now I might go back and watch. But but we are in the pop culture and people want to call them dire wolves. So, you know, and from a pop culture stance, okay, you know, that's fine. But from a scientific communication standpoint, we have to stay true to the science. So we do have to call them genetically modified organisms, rather than a new species. They're genetically modified gray wolves. Yeah, right. Gotcha. Now I have to ask this as someone who works for the zoo and the zoo is very, very big on not only having, you know, scientists and experts, but also being able to communicate that science to the public, right?

22:48 Every one of you at the staff there are very good at discussing about the animals, the different characteristics, their personalities of the animals that you have at the zoo, but also the work that you do, which is very complex. You have to have that ability to say that to a public audience that may or may not have the background, like a biology background or anything like a science background. And you guys are very good at doing what you do. Now here's the question I pose to you. Okay. The media comes out saying dire wolves are back, right? De extinct. Everything like that. Scientists come out and be like, well, actually hold on a second. Like that's not the case in this particular point, but everybody's excited that this dire wolf is back. And this is the first time they've some of them have most of them have ever heard of this type of, you know, of this technology is biotechnologies to bring in. So they get excited about that, especially in a new cycle. That is, let's be honest, crap right now. Like it's not very nice. So we have this, like, you know, some of the things that we're doing that are really, really cool.

23:45 We have this, like, you know, scientists are always, I always feel like the scientists are like the parents of, of, you know, the public words like, yeah, it is kind of cool, but it's not quite the way it is. And they're all just like, you ruin everything. Like, you know, it's almost that perception as a scientist where you have to say it because we're scientists, but also people are like, but dire wolves, like we want dire wolves. How do you deal with that where you can speak intelligently on the subject? But in a way where you're not seen as, you know, downing the the the the this new sort of announcement. Okay, that's a really important question.

24:26 And I think that's what really good science communicators are about. And perhaps because we work in zoos and our goal is to educate as well as doing science, we really focus on educating from like two-year-olds to 72 year olds. We have to, you know, master the span of the language. But I think what is really important is to celebrate the science, the science that was done needs to be celebrated in the sense that they are developing technologies that can be useful for many things. But then we need to stay true to science.

25:09 And one of the reasons is because it is a very difficult time in the world now, where, you know, people are questioning what is being said in social media, on the internet. And if scientists don't say stay true to the word, to the science, then it becomes a slippery slope for scientific integrity. So we celebrate what was done. But then we clearly state that, you know, we'd like to call these genetically modified gray wolves. Right. But we celebrate how they got there. Exactly. Yeah. And I agree with you. I think that's that's really important, especially from a public perception. Like we know scientists sometimes in the public are not really seen as, you know, the regular people that everybody that we are, you know, and this is why I started the podcast is to get to know people and and how we behave and what our likes and dislikes are and then how we feel about certain topics like this.

26:05 But it's also when when we get an idea like this, they're not just the questions of this is great technology and this is really cool. And we celebrate it. But there are a lot of thoughts from an ethical point of view of what we're doing here. And I'd like to talk about this for the rest of the interview. And that is, okay, so now we have these these wolves, these genetically modified wolves, modified wolves with dire wolf genes in them. This means that there's genes in this these wolves. We don't know if they're going to be dominant. We don't know if they're going to be recessive. We have no idea. They are in a two thousand acre park or reserve that they're monitored by like 10, 10 different people.

26:50 And they're, they're well secured according to the company, according to colossal. Say they get out. Right. This is what we're always worried as biologists in conservation. As we worry about Atlantic salmon being farmed in open pen nets and what if they get out? That's a concern that, you know, the aquaculture facilities as well as biologists and the government are all worried about what if they get out and what if they interact with gray wolves within their area, right? They're obviously in probably a similar habitat. That's why they're located. We don't know where they're located, but we know they're in northern in northern US. What if that again, what if these animals start to interact and start to breed with these animals? Could this, even though there's the small amount of genes that are changed, could this affect the local population?

27:41 Especially as an invasive species. Okay. So, so those are the things, you know, when, when scientists are always not the fun ones at the party is because we're always the ones calculating risk. Yes. Yes. In our mind, calculating risk. So absolutely, this is not a different species. We know that they can interbreed with gray wolves. We know that even a really protected habitat that the the chance of escape is always there. It's never 100% full proof. So, so this animal is larger looks different.

28:27 We actually the the laboratory experiments were not properly done to understand how the selective advantage. Will it out compete gray wolves with will the hybrids out compete natural gray wolves we actually like the the difference between an academic study where a lot of the checks and balances through the repeated laboratory experiments are done. And the paper is published. This is a case where the pups were made the moment is celebrated, but we actually don't have all the answers yet. So the word invasive species could be the reality. So, you know, right now they're saying they're not slated for release.

29:16 But you know, the discussion is always there. Yeah, if the decision is made, you know, five, 10 years from now or two years from now that there's a possibility of release. Let us remember that there is no actual, you know, border in the wild between states between provinces. These animals can get anywhere and they are predators. So they're, they're top of the line. I mentioned breeding, but you're looking at affecting, you know, prey species and and food for other like that could affect the food availability for other wolf wolves and so forth. So that could that that's something I never really thought of. But obviously something that you have to think about.

29:59 And now, you know, we don't know if they plan on making more. We don't know if this is an ongoing breeding breeding program. So we'll let colossal decide that and announce that in terms of because we don't know that. But it's definitely a consideration. Obviously, if they continue to breed them, they're going to have to do something with them. They can't just use a 2000 acre park. Now, it would be cool if people could see them and people can look at them. I think again, like just to see if they do express that those genes later on in life as they become an adult and see what they can do. And if they do express that those genes later on in life as they become an adult and see what this ancient species look like or this, you know, 10,000 year old species look like. I think it would be kind of kind of an interesting thing from a scientific point of view and definitely interesting for for for other people that that are, you know, want to know more about about animals. Now, it's interesting. I was I was reading on the CBC article where Colossal like the CEO Ben Lam says that, you know, the project started out two years ago to get people talking about endangered red wolf populations.

30:57 And they said with this technology, they've actually used a less invasive technique it developed while working with diarwolves. They actually produce clone for cloned red wolves. Now, you are involved in a lot of, you know, in vitro fertilization and, you know, taking those eggs, experiment and being able to. We don't understand why this is so hard to explain. But this is the 00 sorry, 20 fact agent. Now, this it the game's sort of cliché joke in that now. the ancient DNA to produce clones of, you know, present-day DNA, correct?

31:46 Correct, correct. And in fact, Toronto Zoo has red wolf sperm frozen in its cryobank. We were one of the original partners in the Red Wolf Project in the 90s and 2000s where we were trying to develop artificial insemination programs. So we're kind of connected in the past. But the Red Wolf is a species where we've got genetic diversity in the biobank, you know, a number of males going back almost to the founders. So there's a lot of genetic diversity present. Think about that 35-year frozen bison calf. We can have 30-year-old frozen red wolf pups as well.

32:30 So when you're looking at a species like Red Wolf, I don't see the need for these really high end genetic editing technologies to to ensure the genetic diversity of the Red Wolf right now. Okay. And now we are going to go a little bit beyond the dire wolves now because this this company has also come out and said it has DNA, not intact DNA, but DNA from woolly mammoths, the thylacine, I think, which is the Tasmanian tiger. Ancient species that have been extinct and the dodo bird, which is pretty much the representative for all extinct species. You know, everybody's it's part of that. That, you know, that expression, the way of the dodo, meaning it's going out the window kind of thing. It's it's going to go extinct. These are other species. But, you know, the woolly mammoth is one that's that's interesting. A large animal.

33:21 Obviously, people have been, you know, bringing it back in movies and, you know, cartoons and it's it's a it's an interesting animal, obviously, because we're like the elephant is such an iconic animal present day that the woolly mammoth becomes iconic as well from an ancient perspective. They say that they are on their way to actually producing a woolly mammoth. Now, woolly mammoths like environments that are very similar to Canadian environments. Where do they like? I guess the question is like, where do they plan on putting these these animals? I know this is a company that's US based and then maybe they try and put it, you know, northern part. But we're talking about dire wolves. We're talking about woolly mammoths. And I'm not sure about the Tasmanian tiger or the dodo, but these are both animals that like cold areas like colder temperatures.

34:12 I'm going to go out and say tundra Arctic tundra, like very like colder animals. Obviously, they had the fur on them. I guess the question is, is one, where are we going to put them? And is it right to bring them back during a time where the earth is warming? You know what I mean? Like we're an unprecedented warming due to humans. Is it ethically right to bring these animals back in such a bad situation? So again, these are these are really great questions with the dire wolf and the woolly mammoth. We're talking about two species that had a native range in in what is present day Canada. Right. So, so that's why we should be paying attention.

34:56 Because, you know, they would do very well in our ecosystems up here. The tricky thing is that the environment today in the north or across Canada is not what it was in the ice age when they were last here. It is a different ecosystem. And so not knowing the gene edits that will be done to create the woolly mammoth or the the full dire wolf. We really don't have an understanding of how they're going to perform in today's environment. And remember you you earlier on had said about like our nutrition team understanding the nutrition, not only in human care, but in the world.

35:45 So what what is left for them? What truly will they eat? Not only to you know, we say in the zoo world, it's not about just surviving. It's about thriving. Yes, yes. You don't want to release them to the wild to hang on like to barely survive. They need to be able to thrive and build population. So yeah, can we offer that? Yeah, I don't think we know. Yeah. Well, and even thinking here's my marine biology brain going off here. You got you got a polar bear population who is suffering because they can't be on ice floats as much because of the melting sea ice. So they can't hunt as as what they used to be. So now there's evidence to show that they are spending more time on land to try and find berries and food.

36:33 And but there's not much in the Arctic in terms of that. If you put a wooly mammoth in the Arctic, those polar bears might thrive just from hunting wooly man. I don't know if that's going to happen or if that would ever happen, but that might actually save that species. Now, of course, I do this in just because you know, you just you just think like out of the box kind of thing. But you know, we are not bringing back species to help other species because we can't control what happens in nature. And I think humans are often thought to have doing like we've done that in the past and it's it's failed miserably with invasive species and introducing species that they that we shouldn't have in it affecting the rest of the environment. So we even though we understand more of the intricacies of food webs and so forth, I feel like it's difficult to to do that kind of thing. But yeah, from an ethical standpoint, you know, looking at there's so many things to to to address.

37:27 Hopefully, you know, colossal has some answers as the same thing. With that,istry, and universal. Overall from your perspective, personally and scientifically, is this something, what do you think about all of this?

38:08 In terms of, obviously we know what you think about in terms of the science. It's really interesting that they're able to do multiple different segments and gene expressions, which I think is really, obviously I agree with you, it's really cool. But with the whole press release, with the whole idea of de-extinction, what are your thoughts on that from a scientific point of view, this whole thing? You know, I'm a biotechnologist by training, right? Those of us at reproductive technology, we're biotechnologists. And as much as I've spent my entire career working in biotechnology, what I'm realizing is that we have to connect humans to nature.

38:54 The way for us to stay healthy, like the planetary health, global health, one health, the way for humans, animals, plants and the environment to continue to be healthy is that we have to connect to it. And I think by giving us an out, this type of synthesized nature, whether we're synthesizing animals or plants or, you know, aquatics or things in the sky, it's an easy out. It doesn't necessarily connect people to nature. And that's the one thing that I think we're missing to create that nature positive world. The Red Wolf is still having problems, not because we didn't set up a cryobank, but because humans refuse to live with them and we're shooting them, poisoning them.

39:47 And there was roadkill and other challenges. So, so like it's time for humans to step up and not not think that there's there's a tech out, an easy out technology is going to give us an easy out. And I feel as though, you know, having this these these cryobanks, having the ability to repopulate is a tool in the tool, the conservation tool belt, but it's not the tool that we need to think we're not just going to start producing and then do whatever we want with these animals. That's not what we do. We want to make sure that we conserve what we have right there and not affect the rest of the environment. And if we could reproduce them and help the species, that's great.

40:27 But it's a species that's today living today having intact DNA, right? Exactly. You know, the key word in reproductive technology is assisted reproductive technology. It's to assist as needed not to create from scratch. Gotcha. Now, I have to ask this question because everybody in the comments every time they see something when it comes to cryogenic labs and bringing back species and this is for fun. How close are we to Jurassic Park? My lifetime. Bringing back dynamic. We're able to bring back the wooly man with are we able to bring back dinosaurs? Is that like with bird DNA like with birds?

41:10 Are we able to do that? You know what? My understanding is that perhaps the DNA is just too fragmented. Gotcha. So again, you know, colossal is developing the steps to get there. But but I think we're talking about species where where we just don't have enough intact DNA. Gotcha. Well, that's really great. Gabby, this has been fantastic. Again, I really appreciate you doing this on such short notice and bringing your scientific expertise and your personal expertise. I really appreciate all the work that you do for the zoo and what you've been doing for conservation and coming on here and giving our audience a great perspective on what's been happening with with these dire wolves and colossal.

41:52 And thank you so much. I'd love to have you back on the podcast again. Wonderful. I'll take up the invitation and and in return, I want to thank you for sharing these stories. I think it's important for everyone to have a deep understanding and and then be able to to form their own thoughts. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm going to tell us the people I know I have a lot of people who listen across the world. But if you're ever in Toronto, go visit the Toronto Zoo, talk to the zookeepers. They know a lot about about these animals and they can talk a lot about the cryogenics lab. They can talk a lot about the research on not only the conservation, but the welfare of the animals. You guys do a great job in communicating that. And I really appreciate it. So for the audience members for coming to Toronto, let me know and I'll come with you and I'll we'll we'll we'll be able to talk all about that.

42:38 So thank you again, Gabby. Really appreciate it. We'd love to have you back on. Excellent. Have a great day. Thanks. You too. Thank you, Gabby, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was great to have you on. Great to be able to answer those questions. I hope you're listening to this and saying, hey, you know what? Like I'm an audience member. I talk. I come here to hear about the ocean to hear about science. This is an interesting science news piece because it was it was worldwide in a time where the new cycle sucks. And we're always hearing about disappointing news. This is kind of something that was like, hey, you know what? This is cool news. This is something interesting is something that you can talk to people about in a positive way.

43:19 And I wanted to make sure that you had all the resources and understood all of the implications of a significant achievement like this. And I think that's what I wanted to do for today's episode is just to give you the information. And Gabby obviously had an amazing expertise background. She brought the information like no other. And I'm really happy that I got to have her on the podcast. I asked her yesterday and she did it like today. Today is Wednesday. I'm going to release this on a Friday. But I asked her on a Tuesday. She says, yes, I'm available. And she was able to do this. And not only does she did it in such great fashion. So I really appreciate Gabby for for being on the show and for bringing us the information that we needed to know about these direwalls or these genetically modified gray whales.

44:03 So and answering the questions and talking about questions around marketing and PR for these types of species. And is it people are like, hey, we brought the direwalls back and is it but it's not really a direwolf from a scientific point of view. And there are scientific regulations and functions that we have to follow around naming certain species or coming up with a different species just because they may look like a different species. Doesn't mean genetically they are a different species. And I really loved how Gabby highlighted that aspect that we used to be species on morphology, but we don't do that anymore because we have the genetic material or ability to read the genetic material. Now we look at it, how diverse they are from genetics.

44:45 And look, this happens every once in a while where we see, you know, we see species like say fish species that we think are a large population. And then we do the genetic, you know, we do the genetic comparison of different like subpopulations. And we find out that one population is genetically different from another population that could be because they were isolated a hundred years ago, two thousand years ago, ten thousand years ago geographically. And so they came up with their own genetic mutations and they started to develop that way and evolve that way. But morphologically, like outside, they look the same. So we just assume that they were the same. And when we categorize based on morphology, we categorize it the same way. Now we're being able to look at the genetic material and understanding that when we compare them, some of them are different.

45:28 We look at it. Are they new species? And is that new species species at risk because they don't have the population numbers to say, hey, we're a healthy population. We have to find out more about that. And it incurs more research. It inspires more research. It demands more research to be able to make sure that we protect that species. So this gets into a whole other side of biology, a whole other side of genetics and conservation biology. And I think it's extremely important to talk about something that we don't talk about on this podcast at all. This is the first time we've really talked about it. And I'm really happy that Gabby was able to join us. And I hope you got what you came for. I hope you got the information that you needed to say, hey, when people talk to you, it's like, hey, I was listening to this podcast.

46:12 This is what they said they're an expert on. You know, it's a cool thing that they're able to modify multiple genes at once and express it into an animal. And but there's also a lot of questions that and implications from this and what we're going to do in the future. You know, I think that's something the questions that become interesting and what they're going to do with these species and how much how often are they going to be reproducing these species? Is this just three dire wolves and that's cool or are they going to be producing more? What are we going to do with those? Where are they going to go? All these questions need to be answered in time, of course. But I'd love to hear your opinion on what's happening. You know, like the story, the way they came out, the story, the naming of the dire wolf compared to a genetically modified gray wolf.

46:54 Do you even care? I would love to know your opinion. Hit me up in the comments below if you're watching this on YouTube. Or of course, you can always contact me on Instagram at How To Protect The Ocean. That's at How To Protect The Ocean. But thank you again for Gabby. Thank you for listening to this episode of the How To Protect The Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lorne from the True North Strong and Free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.