It’s an hour until.Walrus Call, so I wanted to bring to your attention another insane attempt by Colossal Biosciences to “de-extinct” a species. This time it’s the moa, one of several species of this flightless bird that used to inhabit New Zealand until the Māori killed them all of by bopping them on the heads with jade clubs. Or so I recall.
It is thus just and fitting, and a form of reparations, that these indigenous people will have a big hand in trying to bring back the one unlucky species of moa chosen for “de-extinction.” To see why this endeavor will not happen in our time, have a look at my Boston Globe op-ed explaining why this “experiment” is not only impossible with our present technology, but also unethical. One thing it is, however, is lucrative, with donors ranging from Paris Hilton to wealthy and famous football players. This time, since the moa is a bird from New Zealand, kiwi moviemaker Peter Jackson has kicked in— probably a lot of money.
Apparently Mr. Jackson is unaware of the formidable problems of truly resurrecting a species in its genetic entirety, and doesn’t know that an ostrich with a few genes derived from ancient moa DNA is not a real moa. It would lack, for one thing, the genes that built the moa brain, affecting its behavior and ability to deal with the environment. And there are no close relatives to serve as surrogates. (I can’t give links here because the internet is so damn slow.)
The NZ website Stuff, along with a tweet by Colossal Bioscience itself (the latter still calls itself “The de-extinction company”) describes the insanity.
Our mainstream media does it again! On 9 July we have more nonsense, presented as science (Burr, 2025). Apparently, Colossal Biosciences believes that it can de-extinct the moa within the next decade and that the moa will be alive and walking by 2035.
Apparently, Colossal Biosciences has teamed up with South Island iwi [tribe]Ngāi Tahu, Canterbury Museum and Sir Peter Jackson to bring the moa back to life. These groups have signed up to a strategic partnership which aims to de-extinct nine moa sub-species, starting with the South Island giant moa. Burr informs us that this situation leaves the door open to resurrect other extinct species too – such as the huia.
Unfortunately, Colossal Biosciences knows very well that bringing any extinct species to life is completely impossible and in effect it has already admitted so in relation to much publicized attempts to recreate the “dire wolf” (Le Page, 2025).
. . . Professor Jerry Coyne explains the problems in more or less the following terms (Coyne, 2025). Attempts to bring back extinct species are scientifically misguided and mis-reported by the press. He says that the press distorts what has been achieved scientifically, and pretends that an animal with only a few cosmetic gene edits is identical to an extinct species.
Changing a living species by editing a few genes to get something that looks like the extinct creature is not the same thing as re-creating the extinct creature. Professor Coyne tells us that extinct species embodied thousands of genetic differences from related modern species, including genes that affect metabolism and behavior. Control regions of genes, which lie outside protein-coding regions, are involved in differences between extinct species and their relatives, but we do not know where these regions are and so cannot use them for genetic editing.
Some unwarranted optimism:
Particularly worrying is an assurance from Canterbury Museum’s senior curator, Paul Scofield, that it will happen.
“This will happen. There’s no doubt about it whatsoever. This is the world’s foremost group of scientists working to this goal now.”
Sorry! It will not happen! The practical challenges are much too great. But the real problem for New Zealand is not only a biased media, but one that is scientifically illiterate, ready to put false ideas into the public domain, and that refuses to publish the considered responses of professional scientists.
Well, it may happen, but not in our lifetime—unless you’re less than ten years old and Colossal stays in business that long. I will be in the clay before anything close to a moa “de-extinction” occurs, so I won’t have to apologize on this website for raining on Colossal’s ever-changing parade. Remember when the company said they’d “de-extincted” the dire wolf, then admitted that they hadn’t really resurrected the dire wolf but then later did a 180° turn with Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief scientific officer, arguing that yes, they had brought back the dire wolf? To do this, she had to adopt the Species Concept That Nobody Holds (SCTNH), which is roughly this: “If something resembles in any way another species, then it they are members of the same species.” By those lights, we’re the same species as chimps and bonobos.
I was sent both a tweet from Colossal as well as their latest YouTube video about the project. I can’t see either of them here since the Internet is so bad, but watch and judge for yourself.
All I can say is that to pretend that a few gene edits can bring a species back to life is to be both disingenuous and arrogant. But of course if Colossal admitted the truth, they’d be out of business. That’s why they pretend that the edited gray wolf they confected is really a “de-extincted dire wolf.”
It’s a cult.
Bah! Humbug!
O tempora O mores
Or I might denounce “colonial western science” and valorize Indigenous Ways of Knowing that surely will be central to success.
Your point raises an important question: how can the NZ government permit this to proceed using western science, when it knows it should be and can be accomplished by Indigenous Ways of Knowing?
I wonder if Sir Peter Jackson is less interested about the success of this project than the blessings that will be showered upon him by the Māori community.
He’s a kid who never entirely grew up.
Presumably for giving them something to hunt and eat.
Not a Moa.
Colossal is taking advantage of the limited scientific knowledge among members of the press and the press’s vulnerability to sensationalism. Colossal’s dishonesty is tarring all of science. A few news sources have pushed back by questioning the legitimacy of their claims. One can only hope that their voices are heard.
This is a good example of fiction getting ahead of fact, and fact trying mightily to catch up. Fiction bursts out of nowhere, so fact always starts out behind.
Not just the press. They also appear to be taking advantage of well-heeled but not scientifically savvy supporters.
Your comment brings to mind Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes.
Indeed it does.
“Scientific method seeks to understand things as they are, while alchemy seeks to bring about a desired state of affairs. To put it another way, the primary objective of science is truth, – that of alchemy, operational success.”
-George Soros
Supposedly from
The Alchemy of Finance
85-ish
The library STILL has not loaned it to me!
But I am convinced that Colossal is practicing Soros’ financial alchemy … a fancy way of saying “no publicity is bad publicity”.
Modern science (knowledge) and technology (engineered results) are different enterprises but tightly coupled. I see no significant conflict.
It’s a bit crazy that such misrepresentation to investors is not a crime. But, fools and their money . . .
It is indeed a kind of Ponzi scheme, and that is why they keep grifting the press about the Big Sexy Extinct Species (BSES), rather than the smaller and probably easier extinct species (sapees). Why not the Dodo? Or Passenger Pigeon? Or Ivory-billed Woodpecker (sorry. It’s probably gone). Recently extinct species have close genetic relatives that are not extinct.
We all know why.
But now with bits of media already primed to cast doubt, thanks to widely disseminated rumblings about the Dire Wolf, maybe this one will not fly very far.
“Maybe this one will not fly very far.”
I see what you did there.
Perhaps Peter Jackson thinks this will be achieved like the scene in LOTR 1, where Saruman’s Uruk-Hai emerge from birthing pits in the ground, fully-grown and ready for action?
If Colossal do succeed, will their resurrected ratites be displayed in Moarassic Park?
😆
The efforts of Colossal’s “foremost group of scientists” is obviously unnecessary. The company need only convince an ostrich to self-identify as a Moa—remember, TMAM.
Seriously, I wonder whether Colossal’s propaganda fits into the 2010s’ zeitgeist that is beginning to fade—the fantasy of transformation by self-ID, utopia by DEI trainings, and the mandated irrelevance of objective realities.
Problem solved! Hooray!
“Transmoas are moas”. Excellent.
I’ll read this properly later but if Colossal wasn’t a fraud it’d be great to bring Moas back. As I kid I was ABSORBED by a “Moa” (emu feathers over skeleton replica) in the Auckland Musuem. Awesome.
Sadly though…
Be that as it may, I think this is a perfect opportunity for Maori “science” (MM) to prove itself as “real science” and bring back the bird the Maoris extincted! Indigenous “At one with nature” and all. Circle of life as it were….
D.A.
NYC
Well said, David. There must be hakas that will recreate the mauri of our extinct Moa brothers and sisters.
Colossal BS are in fact claiming that this project is “Māori-led.” Perhaps rubbing whale oil on an ostrich will help?
Approximately twenty million years since divergence, and ostriches aren’t even the closest living relative (telling that they picked the biggest available bird, not the closest living relative). Somewhere around twenty times more distant from each other than Dire Wolves are to their closest living modern relatives (also not wolves. Interesting pattern there).
That’ll go well.
Although I must confess that I like the idea. Little elementary school me’s first ever story put to paper involved exploring New Zealand and finding the last living Moa…
Pity the project is just as much of a fantasy as seven or eight year old me’s story.
If they do bring back the moa, then perhaps they should also resurrect the Haast’s eagle (Hieraaetus moorei) to prey on it. This might actually be a more feasible proposition, given that the eagle still has a close living relative.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030009&type=printable
Radio NZ is my go-to source for coverage of NZ events;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/search/results?q=moa&commit=Search
has many items, including an interview with Sir Peter and mentions of a Jurassic-ish Park (on Maaori land, FWIW). Also farmed moa (reminding me of Krusty the Klown’s penchant for condor omelettes).
Some comments about the interviews:
“Giant moa are probably too big to start off with; better to go with something smaller, about horse size — a ride-on moa.”
“If it walks like a moa, quacks like a moa….”
Even if it were possible to do and I have no issues saying in anything there is always an unknown, even if it is a fraction of one percent.
Regardless, I find bring back stuff we wiped out eons ago no less offensive as bringing back dinosaurs as Jell Goldblum did in a certain movie I enjoy.
Moa around for 4000 years then hungry Maori settler-colonists arrived. Moa extinct within 200 years. Settler-colonial guilt at play here.
Maybe hobbits and elves are next…
Please keep speaking out against the de-extinction fraud. This is so important.
Colossal Biosciences is just exploiting the ignorance of most folks. De-extinction sound plausible to folks without a background in evolutionary biology (or science in general). Our time is full of very real wonders. CB is just exploiting this, for their own advantage.
De-extinction (sort of) has really been done (for Spanish Flu). The results were very grim.