VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis emerged from his convalescence on Easter Sunday to bless thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square and treat them to a surprise popemobile romp through the piazza, drawing wild cheers and applause as he continues his recovery from a near-fatal bout of double pneumonia.

“Viva il Papa!” (Long live the pope), “Bravo!” the crowd shouted as Francis looped through the square in his open-topped popemobile and then up and down the main avenue leading to it. He stopped occasionally to bless babies brought up to him, a scene that was common in the past but unthinkable just a few weeks ago as the 88-year-old pope fought for his life.

“Brothers and sisters, Happy Easter!” Francis said, his voice sounding stronger than it has since he was released from the hospital March 23 after a five-week stay.

Francis didn’t celebrate the Easter Mass in the piazza, delegating it to Cardinal Angelo Comastri, the retired archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica. But after the Mass ended, Francis appeared on the loggia balcony over the basilica entrance for more than 20 minutes and imparted the apostolic blessing in Latin.

The crowd of people below, estimated by the Vatican to be more than 35,000, erupted in cheers as a military band kicked off rounds of the Holy See anthem.

In all, Francis was outside on a sunny spring day for around 50 minutes, with temperatures at 21 degrees Celsius (70 Fahrenheit) in a piazza awash in daffodils, tulips and other flowers donated by the Netherlands for Easter.

“It is excellent, a miracle,” said Margarita Torres Hernandez, a pilgrim from Mexico who was in the square. “Now that he has come out, for me it’s a miracle, it’s something very big, very beautiful.”

Pope met briefly with US Vice President Vance

On his way to the basilica, Francis met briefly in his hotel with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who was spending Easter in Rome with his family. The Vatican said the encounter lasted just a few minutes and was designed to allow for an exchange of Easter greetings.

Francis, for his part, gave Vance three big chocolate Easter eggs to give to his three young children.

“I know you have not been feeling great but it’s good to see you in better health,” Vance told the pope. “Thank you for seeing me.”

Francis is recuperating from a lengthy hospital stay

Francis has only appeared in public a handful of times since returning to the Vatican after a 38-day hospital stay. He skipped the solemn services of Good Friday and Holy Saturday leading up to Easter, but he had been expected to make an appearance on Sunday.

Doctors have prescribed two months of convalescence and respiratory therapy to improve his lung function after he came down with a life-threatening case of double pneumonia. He still seems to require great effort to project his voice, and his breathing remains labored. But his voice sounded stronger than it has to date in the few words he uttered from the loggia.

“It was a very touching moment for us (to see the pope),” said Marcin Popowsky, a pilgrim from Poland. “And we are very happy that we can see a pope in good shape.”

Easter is a moment of joy for Christians

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Easter is the most joyful moment on the Christian liturgical calendar, when the faithful celebrate the resurrection of Christ after his crucifixion. This year, Easter is being celebrated on the same day by Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and has been marked by Russia’s announced temporary Easter truce in its war in Ukraine.

Easter at the Vatican traditionally involves a Mass and the pope’s Urbi et Orbi blessing (Latin for “to the city and the world”), a papal speech delivered from the loggia which is usually a roundup of global hotspots and human suffering.

In the speech, read by Archbishop Diego Ravelli, master of liturgical ceremonies, Francis appealed for peace in Gaza and Ukraine, as well as Congo and Myanmar and in other hotspots. And he made a special appeal for migrants and those affected by violence.

“How much contempt is stirred up at times toward the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants!” the message said. “On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves, or who come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs, ways of life and ideas! For all of us are children of God!”

Before Sunday, Francis’ biggest outing had been a visit to Rome’s downtown prison to spend Holy Thursday with inmates. The visit made clear his priorities as he slowly recovers: to spend time with the people most on the margins.

Edward Lotterman

President Donald Trump is angry with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

In comments made in Chicago Wednesday, Powell had the temerity to suggest that Trump’s tariffs might have negative economic impacts to which the Fed may have to respond.

Among other things, Powell said higher tariffs could increase inflation and lower output and employment. Additionally, he questioned the GOP belief that cuts can be made in discretionary spending that are large enough to close chronic budget deficits. They aren’t.

All these statements directly counter what Trump asserts. He responded with insults and said, “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

As he usually does, Trump views contradiction as a personal challenge like an armored knight throwing down a gauntlet daring a rival to fight. In this case, however, this is a mistake, and if the president starts a campaign to dominate the Fed he is doomed to fail in the long run.

The architects of our central bank put years of effort into creating an institution completely insulated from political control. Trump can kick back against that wall all he wants, or beat his head against it for that matter, but he won’t succeed.

Powell is not a lone knight looking for a fight. He is a quiet but resolute sheriff with a strong posse behind him. And they enjoy multiple defensive advantages.

First, consider the defenses that have developed spontaneously — and naturally — over time, by market forces and not from legislation. The U.S. dollar remains the most important currency in the world. Our private-sector capital markets are by far the largest, most liquid in the world, with the best legal protections and a history of freedom from political meddling.

If an ignorant, inept and impulsive president ruins these reputations developed over a century and a half, bond markets here and elsewhere will be thrown into a tailspin. These are natural forces akin to the tides and the sunrise. Trump may be heedless of this, but key aides understand the peril to his presidency and our economy. Even after stabilization, the U.S. would never recover its reputation for safety and soundness that we still have.

Secondly, even if Trump plunges ahead against wise counsel, ousting even a lame duck chair like Powell will not be easy. The law is on the side of the Fed. The Board of Governors, backed by the 12 independent private-corporation Fed district banks marshal a lot of legal firepower. None are subject to the control of the president or attorney general. Individually, or as a group, there is no question that these banks would have legal standing to challenge an attack on the long-established status of the Fed system as a whole.

Moreover, despite some journalistic and public beliefs to the contrary, the Fed Chair is not a dictator. He is one of seven governors. He is their chair, not president or commander. Moreover, the Board of Governors does not control money supply and interest rate decisions by itself. Management of these policy instruments, by intentional design to deter just what Trump threatens, falls to the Federal Open Market Committee. That includes the seven governors plus five of the 12 district presidents in an annual rotation. These are private-sector roles immune from firing or pressure from any politician. And they are fiercely protective of that autonomy. This system of fragmented authority was created for situations just like the present.

Yes, the FOMC usually does vote for the policy suggested by the chair, with only one or two dissents at most. But that is not from blind obedience. Rather, it is that a competent chair never advances a policy move for which they do not have enough votes.

Consider even the worst-case scenario: Trump ignores federal court orders affirming Powell’s protection against being fired over policy disagreements; federal marshals, under Trump’s order, force their way past the Board of Governors’ own guards to physically drag Powell off the premises. But having done that, there would still be six governors. Remove all those and five district presidents would remain. There is no way they could be excluded without a major revision of the Federal Reserve Act. By then, the world financial system would be in a freefall as bad as 1929. Even with an acquiescent Congress and courts, Trump might win skirmishes, but he cannot win a major battle nor the war. Markets will win out in the end.

Now, what about Powell’s assertions in his Chicago speech? Is he out of line in making them? Are they true or false?

Appropriateness of comments by a Fed official is not a trivial issue. An unwritten ethic in the past was that Fed Board members should not voice opinions on matters outside of monetary policy or the banking system. When Fed Chair Alan Greenspan cautiously testified for President George W. Bush 2001 tax cut, he was criticized by some.

That ethic has broken down, however. Moreover, in meeting the Fed’s statutory mandate to maintain “maximum employment” and “stable prices,” Fed leaders must evaluate all relevant factors. Ditto for its roles as a financial system regulator and lender of last resort. They need reliable appraisals of current economic conditions. And they should explain reasons for policy decisions to the general public and not only after the fact. Powell was not out of line.

Are these Fed views on issues of tariffs, taxes and spending correct? If you asked a few thousand private-sector economists if the new tariffs were likely to boost inflation, an overwhelming majority would say “yes!” There would be a similar response on their potential to reduce output and employment. Trump cannot fire them all.

If asked, “Can federal budget deficits be closed by reductions in discretionary spending?” responses would be a resounding “No!” — although there would be considerably different views on alternatives that might be successful.

Be prepared for this to blow up into Trump’s biggest legal confrontation so far.

Unless Trump’s advisers can convince him to avoid a battle he cannot win, there will be protracted tension. None of this will be good for the U.S. or world economies, but longer run outcomes are of little importance to Trump. His mentor Roy Cohn taught him to just hit back reflexively, without long-term strategizing. That won’t work in this case.

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St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.

By Henry Larweh, KFF Health News

Fentanyl, the deadly synthetic opioid driving the nation’s high drug overdose rates, is also caught up in another increasingly serious problem: misinformation.

False and misleading narratives on social media, in news reports, and even in popular television dramas suggesting people can overdose from touching fentanyl — rather than ingesting it — are now informing policy and spending decisions.

In an episode of the CBS cop drama “Blue Bloods,” for instance, Detective Maria Baez becomes comatose after accidentally touching powdered fentanyl. In another drama, “S.W.A.T.,” Sgt. Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson warns his co-workers: “You touch the pure stuff without wearing gloves, say good night.”

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While fentanyl-related deaths have drastically risen over the past decade, no evidence suggests any resulted from incidentally touching or inhaling it, and little to no evidence that any resulted from consuming it in marijuana products. (Recent data indicates that fentanyl-related deaths have begun to drop.)

There is also almost no evidence that law enforcement personnel are at heightened risk of accidental overdoses due to such exposures. Still, there is a steady stream of reports — which generally turn out to be false — of officers allegedly becoming ill after handling fentanyl.

“It’s only in the TV dramas” where that happens, said Brandon del Pozo, a retired Burlington, Vermont, police chief who researches policing and public health policies and practices at Brown University.

In fact, fentanyl overdoses are commonly caused by ingesting the drug illicitly as a pill or powder. And most accidental exposures occur when people who use drugs, even those who do not use opioids, unknowingly consume fentanyl because it is so often used to “cut” street drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

Despite what scientific evidence suggests about fentanyl and its risks, misinformation can persist in public discourse and among first responders on the front lines of the crisis. Daniel Meloy, a senior community engagement specialist at the drug recovery organizations Operation 2 Save Lives and QRT National, said he thinks of misinformation as “more of an unknown than it is an anxiety or a fear.”

“We’re experiencing it often before the information” can be understood and shared by public health and addiction medicine practitioners, Meloy said.

Some state and local governments are investing money from their share of the billions in opioid settlement funds in efforts to protect first responders from purported risks perpetuated through fentanyl misinformation.

In 2022 and 2023, 19 cities, towns, and counties across eight states used settlement funds to purchase drug detection devices for law enforcement agencies, spending just over $1 million altogether. Two mass spectrometers were purchased for at least $136,000 for the Greeley, Colorado, police department, “to protect those who are tasked with handling those substances.”

Del Pozo, the retired police chief, said fentanyl is present in most illicit opioids found at the scene of an arrest. But that “doesn’t mean you need to spend a lot of money on fentanyl detection for officer safety,” he said. If that spending decision is motivated by officer safety concerns, then it’s “misspent money,” del Pozo said.

Fentanyl misinformation is affecting policy in other ways, too.

Florida, for instance, has on the books a law that makes it a second-degree felony to cause an overdose or bodily injury to a first responder through this kind of secondhand fentanyl exposure. Similar legislation has been considered by states such as Tennessee and West Virginia, the latter stipulating a penalty of 15 years to life imprisonment if the exposure results in death.

Public health advocates worry these laws will make people shy away from seeking help for people who are overdosing.

“A lot of people leave overdose scenes because they don’t want to interact with police,” said Erin Russell, a principal with Health Management Associates, a health care industry research and consulting firm. Florida does include a caveat in its statute that any person “acting in good faith” to seek medical assistance for someone they believe to be overdosing “may not” be arrested, charged, or prosecuted.

And even when public policy is crafted to protect first responders as well as regular people, misinformation can undermine a program’s messaging.

Take Mississippi’s One Pill Can Kill initiative. Led by the state attorney general, Lynn Fitch, the initiative aims to provide resources and education to Mississippi residents about fentanyl and its risks. While it promotes the availability and use of harm reduction tools, such as naloxone and fentanyl test strips, Fitch has also propped up misinformation.

At the 2024 Mississippi Coalition of Bail Sureties conference, Fitch said, “If you figure out that pill’s got fentanyl, you better be ready to dispose of it, because you can get it through your fingers,” based on the repeatedly debunked belief that a person can overdose by simply touching fentanyl.

Officers on the ground, meanwhile, sometimes are warned to proceed with caution in providing lifesaving interventions at overdose scenes because of these alleged accidental exposure risks. This caution is often evidenced in a push to provide first responders with masks and other personal protective equipment. Fitch told the crowd at the conference: “You can’t just go out and give CPR like you did before.” However, as with other secondhand exposures, the risk for a fentanyl overdose from applying mouth-to-mouth is negligible, with no clinical evidence to suggest it has occurred.

Her comments underscore growing concerns, often not supported by science, that officers and first responders increasingly face exposure risks during overdose responses. Her office did not respond to questions about these comments.

Health care experts say they are not against providing first responders with protective equipment, but that fentanyl misinformation is clouding policy and risks delaying critical interventions such as CPR and rescue breathing.

“People are afraid to do rescue breathing because they’re like, ‘Well, what if there’s fentanyl in the person’s mouth,’” Russell said. Hesitating for even a moment because of fentanyl misinformation could delay a technique that “is incredibly important in an overdose response.”

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

As the Trump administration slashes funding for health, energy and climate research, there’s one science the administration is promoting: de-extinction.

Earlier this month, a biotechnology company announced it had genetically engineered three gray wolf pups to have white hair, more muscular jaws and a larger build — characteristics of the dire wolf, a species that hasn’t roamed the Earth for several millennia.

Now, the Trump administration is citing the case of the dire wolf as it moves to reduce federal protections under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. On Wednesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a proposed rule to rescind the definition of “harm” under the act — which for decades has included actions like harassing, pursuing, hunting or killing endangered wildlife and plants, as well as habitat destruction.

This undated photo provided by Colossal Biosciences shows a young wolf that was genetically engineered with similarities to the extinct dire wolf. (Colossal Biosciences via AP)

“The status quo is focused on regulation more than innovation. It’s time to fundamentally change how we think about species conservation,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in an April 7 post on X, formerly Twitter. “The revival of the Dire Wolf heralds the advent of a thrilling new era of scientific wonder, showcasing how the concept of ‘de-extinction’ can serve as a bedrock for modern species conservation.”

But bioethicists and conservationists are expressing unease with the kind of scientific research being pioneered by Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas-based company on a mission to bring back extinct animals.

“Unfortunately, as clever as this science is … it’s can-do science and not should-do science,” said Lindsay Marshall, director of science in animal research at Humane World for Animals, formerly the Humane Society of the U.S.

The dire wolf also came up at an April 9 meeting of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources that considered amendments to a proposed law that would strip federal protections from western Great Lakes gray wolves — the latest in a decadeslong back-and-forth between conservationists, hunters and politicians that has shifted the species on and off the endangered list since its inclusion 50 years ago.

At the congressional meeting, Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California suggested an amendment to allow a federal judge to reconsider the removal of federal protections if population numbers begin to decline significantly again.

“Well, didn’t we just bring a wolf back that was here 10,000 years ago? I mean, if it really gets that bad, we can just bring woolly mammoths back,” responded Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a Republican and the bill’s sponsor.

“That’s a deeply unserious response to what should be a very serious issue,” Huffman replied.

Gray wolves that live in the Great Lakes and West Coast regions are one of 1,662 species currently protected under the Endangered Species Act. Hunting and trapping almost drove them to extinction in the lower 48 states by the mid-20th century.

Ken Angielczyk, curator of fossil mammals, compares a dire wolf skull, left, and a gray wolf skull in the collection at the Field Museum on April 16, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

Naomi Louchouarn, program director of wildlife partnerships at Humane World for Animals and an expert on human-wildlife coexistence, had a gut reaction to the dire wolf news: “This is going to be a problem for gray wolves,” she recalls thinking. “It almost immediately undermined our ability to protect species.”

In a Wednesday statement to the Tribune, Colossal’s chief science officer, Beth Shapiro, said the company sees de-extinction as “one of many tools” that can speed up the battle against biodiversity loss, which humans are “not close to winning.”

“We don’t see this as an ‘either/or’ question, but rather as a ‘both and,’” she said. “We as a global community need to continue to invest in traditional approaches to conservation and habitat preservation, as well as in the protection of living endangered species.”

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Advancements in genetic technologies could revolutionize wildlife conservation, said J. Elizabeth Peace, senior public affairs specialist with the Interior Department, in a statement Wednesday.

“By preserving genetic materials today, we equip future generations with the tools necessary to restore and maintain biodiversity,” the statement said. “This approach aligns with our commitment to stewarding natural resources responsibly, ensuring that our actions today support a sustainable and thriving ecosystem for the future.”

However, critics say de-extinction sends a misleading message and is, overall, a flawed approach to conservation.

“It’s important to realize that they did not bring the dire wolf back from extinction,” said Craig Klugman, a bioethicist and professor of health sciences at DePaul University. “What they did was genetically tweak a gray wolf … so you have a gray wolf that has some characteristics of a dire wolf.”

“It’s like one, but it isn’t one,” he added.

Shapiro said Colossal is working toward functional de-extinction.

“The goal of de-extinction has never been to create perfect genetic copies of an extinct species,” she said, “but instead to bring back key traits that fill an ecological niche that is vacant because of extinction.”

An inefficient science?

As the executive branch targets federal agencies through mass firings, funding cuts and regulatory rollbacks in the name of efficiency, those skeptical of de-extinction argue that it’s an inefficient science.

“It requires a lot of embryos that fail, a lot of pregnancies that don’t take, to get one creature,” Klugman said.

Those few dozen embryos were implanted in the wombs of two female domestic hound mixes, one embryo taking hold in each. A similar procedure was repeated a few months later with another surrogate who gave birth to a third puppy.

“This type of pioneering genetic research often requires multiple attempts to achieve success,” Shapiro said, “and the knowledge gained from both successes and failures contributes to future improvements in efficiency.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum listens as President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025, in Washington. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

Colossal announced in early March — around the same time Burgum met with company leaders to discuss their role in conservation efforts — that they had genetically edited 38 mice to have hair like the woolly mammoth, a significant step toward engineering Asian elephants with traits similar to those of the extinct species.

To get to those few dozen mice, however, scientists produced 385 embryos, of which 291 were implanted in 16 surrogate females.

“It’s mice. People don’t really care about mice — but we care about mice. We care what’s happening to them,” said Marshall, of Humane World.

Colossal’s facilities are certified by the American Humane Society and registered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to Shapiro. She said the company’s research is overseen by a committee of scientists and nonscientists that is required by federal regulations. The committee reviews and evaluates the company’s research protocols and ensures the ethical use of animals.

Skeptics also argue that animals manipulated to mimic extinct ones likely have no future in the wild.

“They have to be taught how to live and hunt and take care of themselves,” Klugman said. “How do they know how to survive? How can they thrive?”

Leaders at Colossal have acknowledged this reality.

According to an Associated Press report, Matt James, Colossal’s chief animal care expert, said that despite the resemblance, “what they will probably never learn is the finishing move of how to kill a giant elk or a big deer,” because they won’t have opportunities to watch and learn from wild dire wolf parents

Shapiro said the pups won’t be released into the wild, where they would have to compete with gray wolves. Instead, they will live in an “expansive ecological preserve” — the company has said it’s a 2,000-acre site in an undisclosed location — where their health and needs will be continually evaluated under managed care.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a wild wolf pack’s territory can be as large as 32,000 acres, extending up to 640,000 acres where prey is scarce. They can travel as far as 30 miles a day to hunt.

“If you think about (it), those pups aren’t going to live much of a life trapped in an area that’s a tiny percentage of what they should have,” Marshall said. “They’re not a self-sustaining population. They have nowhere to live. … We don’t know if those animals are going to suffer as they get older.”

Ed Heist, a professor at Southern Illinois University and a conservation geneticist,  said the news bothered him.

“This is not conservation, but people conflate it,” he said. “The point is entertainment.”

Nichole Keway Biber feels similarly unsettled. She is a tribal citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa and leads the wolf and wildlife preservation team at the Anishinaabek Caucus of the Michigan Democratic Party. She said it demonstrates that the natural world, to humans, is for consumption or entertainment — and that it ignores the inherent worth of voiceless animals beyond any commercial or amusement benefit they can provide.

“That has a danger,” she said, “of setting a pattern of behavior: to be dismissive of the vulnerable, or take advantage of the vulnerable or be abusive toward the vulnerable.”

Inability to coexist

Louchouarn, the Humane World program director, has dedicated her studies and research to the relationship between humans and animals, specifically carnivores like gray wolves.

Fossil mammals curator Ken Angielczyk compares a dire wolf skull without the tar surrounding the fossil and one skull still in the tar in the collection at the Field Museum on April 16, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

“The reason our current endangered species are becoming extinct is because we don’t know how to coexist with them,” she said. “And this doesn’t solve that problem at all.”

Humans can treat the symptoms of wildlife conflict with “big, flashy silver bullets” and “in this case, advanced, inefficient science,” she said, but the real solution is behavioral change.

“Assuming that we could actually bring back a full population of animals,” Louchouarn said, “which is so difficult and so crazy — that’s a big if — I don’t understand the point of trying to bring back a woolly mammoth when we already can’t coexist with elephants.”

In the United States, political discussions surrounding gray wolf conservation have been based on different interpretations of whether their populations have recovered enough to be sustainable without protections.

“But we define what well is, not the wolves,” Louchouarn said. “The ecosystem can carry a lot more wolves than that. We just refuse to live with them.”

Recent winter estimates count more than 750 wild gray wolves in Michigan, almost 3,000 in Minnesota and just over 1,000 in Wisconsin. Some of those wolves may occasionally travel to Illinois, where they were common until they were wiped out after the arrival of European settlers.

The bill in the U.S. House aimed at removing protections from the species is called the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, and its supporters and sponsors argue it will allow ranchers and communities to manage conflict with wolves as they fear for the safety of their domesticated animals.

In Wisconsin, wolf attacks on livestock have increased over the last three years, resulting in animal deaths or injuries: from 49 confirmed or probable cases in 2022 to 69 in 2023 and up to 85 in 2024. While wolf attacks on dogs in residential areas are rare, they have also increased in recent years, according to state reports.

Conservation biologists who oppose hunting worry it will only exacerbate this type of conflict. When a wolf is killed, it can disrupt pack dynamics, which can in turn lead to lone wolves preying on livestock or pets outdoors — smaller and easier to kill than larger prey such as bison, elk, moose and deer.

For other people, coexistence is a way of life. Biber said the Anishinaabe, the Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes region, live by the principle of dabasendiziwin, or humility in regard to other living organisms.

“It’s not self-denigration, but a realistic awareness of our dependence (on) the elements,” she said, “but also plants and animals, and us. And all the other orders of being can exist apart from us. They’re OK. They were here long before. We’re the newcomers.”

Anishinaabe people, like the Ojibwe and the Odawa, believe in a parallel history with the gray wolf or Ma’iingan, that their fates are intrinsically connected.

“What happens to one, will happen to the other,” Biber said.

A question of stewardship

Species don’t exist in a vacuum, Heist often reminds his students at SIU. “They are parts of their communities.”

So when a species ceases to exist, it loses its place in the ecosystem. It’s a void left to be filled by others over hundreds, thousands of years.

Klugman wonders whether resurrecting animals unprepared for the modern world — “which we clearly have not done yet” — would even be fair to them. “Is that us being good stewards of this planet?”

During a livestreamed town hall with Interior Department employees on April 9, Burgum said: “If we’re going to be in anguish about losing a species, now we have an opportunity to bring them back. Pick your favorite species and call up Colossal. And instead of raising money to get animals on the endangered species (list), let’s figure out a way to get them off.”

Curator Ken Angielczyk talks about a dire wolf skull at the Field Museum on April 16, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

Ken Angielczyk, curator of mammal fossils at the Field Museum who researches extinct species that lived 200 to 300 million years ago, said it’s a misguided approach.

“If that’s the basis … for changing regulations related to the endangered species list, that is very, very premature,” he said. “Because we can’t resurrect things.”

Biber said humans should be focused on preventing further loss. “It’s a lot better use of effort, time, resources, mind power.”

“If the purpose is to restore the damage to the shared ecosystem, we have that opportunity right now,” she said. “And that’s the necessity immediately.”

Angielczyk, who studies mammals that survived the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history, said fossil records after such events show it takes a long time for real ecosystem recovery to occur: 1 to 10 million years — way longer than the human species has existed.

“So, changes that we can cause today quite easily, in some cases, have very, very long-term implications,” he said. “Just another reason why conservation efforts really are important and something that we should be concerned about and actively involved in.”

It’s also crucial to preserve the ability of species to adapt to changing conditions, Heist said, which requires large populations and genetic diversity.

Red wolves represent one such opportunity. The species — once common in most of the eastern and southern United States — still exists, but is critically endangered partly because in the wild, the wolves often mate with coyotes and produce hybrid offspring. That has led to low genetic diversity and weak evolutionary fitness. Just under 20 red wolves exist in their wild, native habitats today.

A collection of dire wolf skulls are on display at the Field Museum on April 16, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

Alongside the dire wolf news, Colossal announced it cloned four of these hybrids and removed most of the coyote DNA along the way. They say it’s the first step to restoring genetic diversity in the captive breeding populations of red wolves, 241 of which live in 45 facilities across the country.

Some conservationists feel more hopeful about this endeavor, though they still express reservations.

“There is a benefit to trying to bring back some of the genes that would diversify … red wolves, that would enhance their ability to survive,” Louchouarn said. “But will that fix red wolf extinction, at the rate that they’re going extinct? No, because the reason it’s happening is they’re being poached at extreme rates.”

Heist said it might not be practical to spend so much money trying to create genetically diverse red wolves to significantly restore their populations.

Bioethicists and conservationists argue that, at its core, the issue is whether humans can put aside self-interest to invest in the well-being of other creatures.

“This whole idea that extinction is reversible is so dangerous,” Marshall said, “because then it stops us caring.”

adperez@chicagotribune.com