Breeding two animals is practically useless - the gene pool would be too undiversified, and populations which have been brought back from the brink by such tech

Breeding two animals is practically useless - the gene pool would be too undiversified, and populations which have been brought back from the brink by such techniques have a bunch of problems. More to the point, the numbers are overwhelming. Thousands of vertebrate species are threatened, not to mention plants and insects which are probably even more valuable to the ecosystem - for example there's no point saving the koala if eucalyptus goes extinct, because there will be nothing for the koala to eat. See: http://dodosgone.blogspot.com/2007/06/extinction-rate-estimates.html http://dodosgone.blogspot.com/2007/06/extinction-rate-estima... for some numbers.