8 O’Clock Buzz host Brian Standing visits, in the studio, with Jack Williams, a professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin Madison, who has studied the complex interlinkages between extinct megafauna and the North American environment.
Conservationists have an impressive list of success stories of species rescued and reintroduced from the brink of extinction: gray wolf, american elk, bald eagle, whooping crane. Some scientists are thinking bigger. Much bigger. In 2013, the discovery of a fully intact woolly mammoth specimen, including soft tissue, frozen in Siberia for 40,000 years, raises the possibility of cloning and reintroducing this extinct relative of the Asian elephant to North America and Europe. Would it work? Perhaps even more importantly, is it a good idea?
John W. (Jack) Williams
Professor of Geography
Director of Nelson Center for Climatic Research
Williams Lab