Scientists are studying ways to bring back the woolly mammoth by using frozen soft tissue and DNA from extinct mammoths. Possible methods include cloning, artificial insemination, and changing the genes of living animals. Some people argue whether it is right to bring a mammoth back to life.

In 2003, scientists briefly revived the Pyrenean ibex, a species that had gone extinct. This event suggests that reviving extinct animals might be possible.

Overview

Scientists believe that genetic material from woolly mammoth remains could be used to recreate living mammoths because of new scientific methods and cloning techniques, like those used to clone Dolly the Sheep in 1996. Cloning techniques for mammals have improved over the past 30 years. So far, scientists have not found a complete mammoth genome or living tissue to use for cloning.

Dr. Beth Shapiro, a scientist who studied the mammoth genome, wrote in her 2015 book How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction that it is unlikely that a pure mammoth can be cloned. However, the book suggests that scientists may eventually create an animal that looks and behaves like a mammoth. Studies show that the mammoth genome is 99% similar to the elephant genome. Scientists are trying to create an elephant with some mammoth genes that control traits like appearance. This would result in a hybrid animal with less than 1% mammoth genes. Other projects are slowly adding more mammoth genes to elephant cells in a lab.

Colossal Biosciences, a biotechnology company founded in 2021 by George M. Church and Ben Lamm, aims to use genetic engineering to bring back the woolly mammoth by combining mammoth genes with Asian elephant DNA. The main goal of the project is to help the environment and reduce the effects of climate change. The company has said it plans to produce its first calf in 2028.

Cloning

Cloning involves taking the nucleus, which contains DNA, from an egg cell of a female elephant and replacing it with a nucleus from woolly mammoth tissue. This process is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. For example, Akira Iritani, a scientist at Kyoto University in Japan, planned to do this, according to some sources. The cell would then be encouraged to start dividing and placed inside a female elephant. The calf that could be born would have the genes of the woolly mammoth. However, no one has found a usable mammoth cell to begin the cloning process. Most scientists believe that no living cells could have survived the freezing conditions in the Arctic tundra. Because of how well the cells were preserved, the DNA of frozen mammoths has become damaged over many years.

Artificial insemination

A second method involves using artificial insemination to place sperm cells from a frozen woolly mammoth carcass into an elephant egg cell. The offspring would be a hybrid of an elephant and a mammoth. This process would need to be repeated multiple times to create more hybrids for breeding. After many generations of cross-breeding these hybrids, an animal very similar to a woolly mammoth could be produced. However, it is unclear if the hybrid embryo could survive the two-year pregnancy. In one example, an Asian elephant and an African elephant produced a live calf named Motty, but the calf died from defects less than two weeks after birth. Also, sperm cells from modern mammals can only remain useful for up to 15 years after being deep-frozen. This makes the method difficult to carry out.

Gene editing

In April 2015, scientists from Sweden shared the complete DNA blueprint of the woolly mammoth. Scientists are working on slowly replacing some genes in elephant cells with genes from mammoths. One project led by George M. Church, a geneticist at Harvard University, is using DNA from frozen mammoth remains to create a hybrid animal with traits of both mammoths and elephants. Researchers say a full mammoth cannot be recreated, but they hope to grow a hybrid elephant with some mammoth features in an artificial womb. In 2017, Church explained that the hybrid would resemble an elephant with traits like small ears, fat under the skin, long hair, and blood adapted to cold temperatures. The Harvard team is studying these traits in the lab by editing mammoth genes into skin cells from Asian elephants, which can become cells that help form embryos. By March 2015, Church’s team used a new DNA editing tool called CRISPR to begin changing genes in Asian elephant cells, focusing first on traits that help animals survive cold weather, such as ear size, fat, blood, and hair. By February 2017, the team had made 45 changes to the elephant’s DNA. So far, their work has only been done on single cells. In 2021, Church received $15 million in funding and started a new company called Colossal Biosciences. In 2025, Colossal Biosciences showed three mice with traits inspired by woolly mammoths, such as cold tolerance, thick fur, and curly whiskers, as a test of their methods.

At Pennsylvania State University, the Mammoth Genome Project is also working to change African elephant DNA to create a mammoth-elephant hybrid. If scientists can create a working hybrid embryo through gene editing, it might be possible to implant it into a female Asian elephant in a zoo. However, it is not yet known if the technology exists to support the hybrid’s development during the two-year pregnancy.

Ethics

Many ethical and legal questions have been raised about trying to bring back the mammoth. These include possible health, safety, and environmental risks, as well as moral and religious concerns. Legal challenges also exist because of how such efforts might fit within current laws. For example, some people suggest that if the process works, the hybrids might be placed in a reserve in Siberia called the Pleistocene Park. However, some scientists question whether this would be ethical. Another issue is that there is not much suitable habitat left for these hybrids. Both mammoths and elephants are social animals, so creating only a few hybrids would not be ideal. The effort would require a lot of time and resources, but the scientific benefits are unclear. This has led some to argue that these resources should instead be used to protect endangered elephant species. Using elephants as surrogate mothers for hybrid embryos is also a concern because most embryos would likely not survive, and it would be difficult to understand the specific needs of a hybrid calf.