Two reasons: 1) cloning is more or less illegal 2) they need good DNA samples to try and clone from and folks wiping species from existence weren't really in the habit of preserving remains

So, there are quite a few issues with that. The animals we want to ressurect are those we had preserved remains of uncovered, like the wooly momoth from the siberian [no longer] permafrost. So we have good samples of their DNA. What else, we have similar animals, from the same family that can bare the offspring.

IIRC we didn't figure out bird cloning, as their reproduction is a bit weird, but I also think the dodo has no close relative species that can carry the egg.

Cloning specimens doesnt solve the inherent problems that led ot these species becoming exctint, be it

lack of a stable population (major disparaty in gender+ long gestation cycles makes a species weak to long periods of scarcity),

a lack of suitable habitat(often because we over took them or in some way affected it negatively),

a change in the overall ecosystem that makes the current iteration of the animal unviable(like the dod for instance effectively only surviving in a place where they had no natural predators).

then you have the issue that a population of clones faces the real risk of a genetic bottleneck which can lead to a vulnerability to a pathogen and the follies that come with inbreeding.(ie the main cause cheetahs were andstill are in danger is because they have a significant genetic bottleneck making a lot of their population majorly inbred.)

> they need good DNA samples to try and clone from and folks wiping species from existence weren’t really in the habit of preserving remains

Couldn’t they just fill in the missing gaps in DNA with that of similar specimens? Frogs capable of asexually reproducing, for example?

On that second point, could a pelt be used? Or does the process of preserving a pelt render the DNA unusable?

Edit: clarified the question

No laws against cloning animals in Germany, Great Britain, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece and The United States

A lot of pelts are treated with things like arsenic or mercury which really fucks up DNA. They have been able to get samples off pelts, they did with tasmanian devils a few years back, but I'm not sure how viable that in regards to cloning.

I'm not super well versed in biology or cloning to confidently answer this question

It's down to states rights currently in the USA, and funding is hard to get generally afaik

What could possibly go wrong?

For most of them, there aren't any samples of cells that are healthy enough to be cloned. Mammoths are an exception (and in fact scientists managed to clone mammoth cells) because they can be found perfectly preserved in ice.

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haven't worked out the kinks yet on modern animals. Only 22 species have been cloned with 19 species able to result in an adult.

So, in spite of the thought its a common and easy thing to do, its not.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15097-7#:~:text=Introduction,be%20the%20first%20cloned%20mammal.

The next issue is economics. If you were to choose an animal to clone would it be an animal that is broadly useful to human kind and have a return on investment to pay for the costs of development, or would you choose an animal that is expensive to keep and a great public interest as a curiosity, but won't solve an important problem or make enough money (even in zoo ticket sales)?

P.S. Don't tell me the economics of tourism and ticket sales for views will pay for the cost of cloning a DoDo....its still more valuable to clone a mundane animal like a super cow that produces lots of milk and/or meat.

Didn't you see the movie? What could go wrong?

Ah that's what I thought. Thanks!

Was Caspian tiger not a large cat? I have heard of Tasmanian Tiger, it looked more like a dog, which would be hard to clone and was really a large marsupial.

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Yeah, my bad. My memory failed me. Tasmanian Tiger is what I thought about.

It's okay, I just always had a soft spot for Tasmanian Tiger. I think they were lovely.There's film footage of the last surviving one and he looked so sad. I read he gave a photographer a nip on the butt once, don't know if it's true.