Why Don't We Clone Extinct or Endangered Animals?

While estimates about the number of species that are going extinct vary widely, one thing is certain: we can list many animals that have already gone extinct. Now that genetic technology has opened many doors in biomedicine, some people might wonder why we don’t solve the extinction problem by just cloning more animals.

This video explains why that is far easier said than done. Although many different kinds of animals have been cloned since Dolly the sheep became the first, it takes more than just a bunch of DNA from the animal we want to clone to generate new animals. The actual process of cloning an animal requires a lot of careful work that can easily go awry and fail to work. It also does nothing to address the factors that cause an animal to go extinct in the first place. Learn more from the video.