Extinct animals hostile to concept of being reengineered, study shows

Extinct animals under threat of being brought back to life show themselves to be 'generally averse' to the idea, a study shows.

A dodo pondering the value of being unextincted yesterday...

A large cross section of extinct animals that are under threat of being brought back to life by genetic scientists have shown themselves to be 'generally averse' to the idea a study shows.

Recent advances into the ability to read ancient DNA which scientists have said may allow us to bring back creatures like the dodo, mammoth, great auk and passenger pigeon, were met with cries of dismay and in some cases hostility from the very creatures who are at risk of unextinction.

Although an extinct creature like the dodo cannot have an opinion, an advanced team of neural brain map experts have found a way to replicate the functioning of a long-dead species brain within computer models. They have run various scenarios through their computer and the results have been startling, they say.

'We thought a dodo might want to be brought back from the long darkness of extinction,' said one of the mad scientists yesterday, 'but after inputting the Dodo Neural map with all available information regarding the current state of the planet's biodiversity, climate and wholly irrational acts by humankind, all we got was a terse: 'thanks, but no thanks' which we are interpreting as not ambivalence, but open hostility to returning.’

Mapping a mammoth's thought processes fared no better, it was reported, and a lack of an empty northern hemisphere in which to roam undisturbed for several millenia being apparently the main stumbling block, plus the lack of the wooly rhino, 'with whom we were always good pals'.

In a slight departure from the consensus 'no to unextinction' view, the Great Auk added that they might entertain the notion of being brought back when things on planet earth were 'less human-centric', and all extinct animals surveyed thought that naturally re-evolving in a million years or so in a post-human environment would be a positive step forward, so long as a healthy gap existed somewhere in ecosystem, and it wasn't too hot or irradiated with nuclear fallout.

But the sternest rebuttal of all came from the neural map of the close human relative the Neanderthal, which point blank refused to have anything with the idea of once again walking the earth. 'Holy fuck’, said the e-Neanderthal once loaded with several million instances of mankind's cruelty to pretty much everything, 'you're kidding me, right? I can see where this is heading. Without rights and owned by a corporation? We'd be little more than slave labour, cannon fodder and medical test vessels. You can take your unextinction bullshit and shove it up your Sapien arse.'

The findings of the Neural modellers were met with dismissive comments by the genetic scientists, who declared they would go ahead with the reengineering anyway. 'You know that thing about how scientists often do something without stopping to consider whether it should be done? Well, that's us, and this is one of those things.'

Originally written for The Toad, 2022