All language subtitles for TIME en X Meet the first dire wolves to exist in over 10000 year

The howl of a dire wolf hasn't been heard on planet Earth for more than 10,000 years.

That's because the species is extinct.

Or was.

Colossal Biosciences is a Dallas-based company that's using genetic engineering to de-extinct

long gone species.

And this is the first time Colossal's dire wolf pups, who are now six months old, have

been seen by the public.

Hey Ben, Jeff Klueger from Time Magazine.

A pleasure to meet you.

Help me a little bit about what the goal is for de-extincting and rewilding ultimately.

Why are you doing this work?

It became abundantly clear that we need new tools and technologies for conservation.

And so we thought this was a really cool way that we could create value, create impact,

inspire people, and then also hopefully thoughtfully rewild some of these species, which apparently

will also have ecological benefits to these different potential ecosystems.

To try and do that, Colossal needed to understand dire wolves at a genetic level.

The company has documented the process from the beginning and shared this footage with

Time for a Cover Story.

So can you tell me a little bit about what went into engineering the dire wolf?

We extracted DNA from two fossils that we knew from previous work.

Add some amount of preserved ancient DNA.

One was a 13,000 year old bone, and the other was a 72,000 year old bone, an inner ear bone.

We were able to generate two genomes, two dire wolf genome sequences from that, which

we then compared to all the other wolves for which there's already been data generated.

And when we do that, we want to figure out where it is that these two dire wolves are

similar to each other, but different from the other wolves that are out there.

And so we come up with this list of genes where they're distinct.

Now our goal in the dire wolf project, just like with all the extinction projects, is

to re-engineer the core traits, the core characteristics that made these extinct species unique and

able to fill whatever role that they filled in their ecosystems when they were still alive.

Using this knowledge, Colossal then made 20 modifications to 14 genes in the DNA of common

gray wolf cells.

These relatively few tweaks to the genetic code produce some big differences.

The dire wolves white coat, large size, characteristic vocalizations like that howly knew heard

at the beginning of the story, and more.

That DNA was transferred to denucleated egg cells, meaning cells without their own genetic

material, and then developed into embryos and were then implanted in the wounds of surrogate

mothers who were hound mixed dogs.

We didn't know how big these embryos would grow, and we wanted to make sure that the

surrogate was healthy, so we picked large dogs.

Romulus and Remus, named after the Roman mythological twin brothers who were raised by a wolf, were

born on October 1, 2024.

And in January they were joined by a younger sister that the colossal team named Calisi.

Each wolf is on track to grow to as large as 6 feet long and 150 pounds.

Colossal isn't planning to reintroduce them to the wild.

Instead, the three dire wolves will live out their lives on a fenced 2,000 acre preserve.

Colossal does not want to disclose this location in order to protect the animals.

I think these are the luckiest animals ever.

They will live their entire life on this protected ecological reserve, where they have

all sorts of space, and they have natural denning environment, and they have an inclement

weather hut that they can go and hide out in if they need to.

They have a 24-hour veterinary care.

Dire wolves aren't the only species on Colossal's de-extinction agenda.

An American company says it has genetically engineered mice, so that they have developed

some traits like mammoths.

A small but potentially important step in a quest to eventually bring back the prehistoric

woolly mammoth.

They hope to de-extinct the woolly mammoth as early as 2028.

The company is also hoping to bring back the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger.

If some of this genetic tinkering feels familiar, it's because Hollywood has been here first,

and spoiler alert, we all know that didn't end well.

So naturally bioethicists have some concerns.

Here, when you're playing with nature, nature usually wins.

Nature is much more complicated than the ability of our brains to understand it.

Genes do many things, there may be a lot of unintended consequences.

Let's say we alter a gene to make extra hair, or to make it burn metabolism more, burn fat

more.

Those genes may do other things in ways that we just don't even understand.

So we may create animals that have lots of medical problems.

If we start tinkering with genes, we may create a super mouse, a super rat that kills

all the other animals around.

But the team at Colossal says their mission to restore extinct species is also about

stopping the disappearance of endangered ones today.

As experts predict Earth will lose 30% of its genetic diversity by 2050.

Colossal has used techniques learned from the Dire Wolf Project to clone four Red Wolves,

a small but important step in fortifying that endangered species.

The four new wolves could help inject fresh DNA into the Red Wolf gene pool, which currently

suffers from a so-called genetic bottleneck.

The result of two few individuals carrying too little genetic variety to keep the species

healthy.

Yes, it would be really amazing to see a mammoth.

It would be great for the habitats of Tasmania to have a keystone predator reintroduced into

that ecosystem.

But the tools that we're developing on the path to these species have immediate application

to species that are not yet extinct.

A future that is both biodiverse and filled with people.

We should be giving ourselves the opportunity to see what our big brains can do to reverse

some of the bad things that we've done to the world already.

There's a huge need to help prevent animals from becoming endangered and going extinct.

We need to spend more money on conservation, particularly now there's a lot of threats

that lands that we have as national parks and preserves are going to be used for drilling

oil, for instance.

There's a lot of habitats where species now live that are going to be under threat.

There's not enough money to help with conservation efforts.