Berkeley Scientists Plan To 'Jurassic Park' Some Extinct Pigeons Back To Life

or will the passenger pigeon take over and push out other species (not to mention causing crop and tree damage)?

Unless they are much different than current pigeons, I think bridges and building are in more danger.

Well, that's kind of the problem with bringing back an extinct species - you don't really know how will behave in the current environment until you bring it back. At first it's declared an endangered/protected species, and it starts to grow... flocks of thousands of birds in the air show the success of the program. Then the flocks grow millions, people start to complain about crop damage as the flocks grow to 100's of millions, putting entire forests are at risk.

It took man 25 years to drive them to extinction (and that's when he had the help from natural predators the had evolved to keep the birds in check), even if it "only" takes 10 years the next time, there's a lot of damage that could be done in the meantime. Plus, man may overshoot the mark and drive other species to extinction in their drive to control the passenger pigeon.

Sometimes it's better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/_VjEEMWdL90/story01.htm

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