I first learned about woolly dogs when researching woolly mammoth de-extinction.
It turns out that there are or were many woolly creatures besides sheep.
If you have to de-extinct something, I say let’s try to bring back the woolly dog and forget the mammoths.
More on that in a minute.
What are woolly dogs?
Woolly dogs are an extinct dog breed highly distinct from other dogs. Not enough to be their own species, but very unique.
The Coastal Salish peoples in the Pacific Northwest including that part of Canada bred these very furry dogs.
The reasons for their extinction are not fully clear. However, it is thought that the waves of colonialism that decimated Indigenous peoples likely also negatively impacted woolly dogs.
It is sad that these cool dogs are gone.
Woolly Dogs and knitting
A 2023 WaPo piece by Carolyn Y. Johnson is an interesting read that explains more on the background of these now-extinct canines. Extinct woolly dog was carefully bred for weaving, ancient DNA confirms.
I also recommend this piece from the Vancouver Sun about how woolly doghair was found in a very old Salish blanket.
The WaPo piece is based on a Science article on genetics research on these unique canines: The history of Coast Salish “woolly dogs” revealed by ancient genomics and Indigenous Knowledge.
De-extinct the woolly dog?
While I think we can agree that woolly mammoths were cool animals, like I said it seems that if someone wants to de-extinct something woolly that a woolly dog might make more sense.
It might not only be far more practical to bring some of these woolly dogs back, but also more useful and I think the woolly dogs could thrive now unlike the mammoths.
Such a canine de-extinction effort also would not rely on other, living endangered animals the way the woolly mammoth project seems to put elephants at risk.
Also see my piece on why de-extincting woolly mammoths is a bad idea. Would de-extincting woolly dogs be a bad idea too? I don’t see big risks other than the associated costs.
I recently wrote about geneticist Beth Shapiro who went from de-extinction skeptic to being the CSO of Colossal Biosciences, which has raised hundreds of millions for their de-extinction efforts. Couldn’t that money be better spent on some other kind of science?