Some thoughts on the Dire Wolf

 

There will be an article in the 4-17-25 issue of the New Yorker on the Dire Wolf.  I am a subscriber and they also send me their news letter which also has this article.  

Much of the information contained in the article I had already encountered elsewhere, but I was shocked to learn at the end that the scientists do not intend to let their Dire Wolves, two males and one female, breed.   So I sat still for a long time thinking about it.

The Dire Wolf, they tell us some place doesn’t derive from the wolf but from the dog, Canis Familiaris.  Perhaps this breed of Canis Familiaris was never domesticated, but it could have been, as all dogs after them, that we know about have been. 

The article is full of how much the science costs, but there is also mention of application, which when it happens is a way to get paid for their work.  I suspect more than a few wealthy dog lovers would pay for a breeding pair of Dire Wolves.  The idea of the Dire Wolf as a pet was in this article dismissed, but the wealthy dog-lovers I imagine could spend a lot of time with them and verify that they are as safe, for example, as safe as any of the ferocious dogs you can see on Youtube being described as the best protection you can own.  The Dire Wolf, never trained to be a ferocious guard dog might very well be less dangerous than some of our ferocious breeds, some of which are larger than the Dire Wolf.

The tenor of the article prepares us to understand that an important impetus in the science is in getting the presently extinct breed back into nature in order to bring nature back into balance.  The Woolly Mammoth is described in that regard.  If they get this animal de-extincted, they can get herds of them shipped to Siberia where they can stomp and poop about and reestablish a balance of nature – make Siberia habitable once again – perhaps double the population of Russia, create more soldiers.  Putin should be delighted.

There doesn’t appear to be an equivalent niche for the Dire Wolf.   Some areas have been rehabilitated by the ordinary wolf, the wolf which had been part of nature before we killed them off.  They have been reestablished to good effect.  No one is likely, I wouldn’t think, to suggest that the Dire Wolf could replace them and do a better job.

But just being looked at by this dog-lover in the midst of his outrage, consider all the jobs we’ve given to the ordinary dog.  There is a very strong argument to the effect that we humans did not evolve all by ourselves.  We evolved in symbiosis with the dog.  For example, we could never have raised sheep that need the dog to herd and guard them.  We could never have established villages which needed dogs to guard and warn us of danger.  The list is long.  Everyone knows it. 

But, the scientist might object, just because the Dire Wolf is genetically a dog doesn’t mean it could ever be pet quality.  Look at the African Hunting Dog.  Can anyone imagine trying to make a pet out of one of those?  Well, maybe not.  And perhaps the Dire Wolf may turn out to be no more safe to cohabit with people than the African Wild Dog, but note that the scientists, without even raising the question has determined to let this revivification of the Dire Wolf die out.

The Dire Wolf went extinct just after humans during the last ice age came across the Bering Straits and south into the North American continent.  Many other species went extinct at the same time.  Maybe there were other reasons for the cataclysmic North American loss of species.  Never lost, were smaller canids that were less harmful and more useful and agreeable to humans.  

There is no evidence that the Dire Wolf was ever domesticated, and I’m not suggesting that they ever were, but what boots that?  Any day on Youtube you can watch videos of species such as the cheetah and panther that have been domesticated and are living uncaged in someone’s home.  Surely a form of Canis Familiaris wiped out during the taking of the Americas by prehistoric man should not be excluded because it once hunted violently in order to make its living.  We are all part of the species that once did the same thing.

Before posting this note, I read some other articles.  There are some who argue that too little has been changed from the present-day wolf for the now-being-touted Dire Wolf to legitimately be entitled to that designation.  Ah me, anyone exposed to the sort of breeding that exists in dog-show circuits might with the same justification deny that any breed is truly entitled to its name.  Whatever it is that is lying near me on the floor as I type, I have great affection for it, her in this case, Jessica, and whomever they are that are on 200 acres somewhere hidden and intended to live their lives as a scientific experiment, but prohibited from breeding and intended to die once again as a species, despite the vaunted term they bandy about, “de-extincted”