TOKYO: A team of Japanese and Russian scientists is pursuing a dream of resurrecting long-extinct mammoths to roam free in a Siberian safari park sanctuary.

They want to resurrect the animals using the DNA of frozen remains of the ancient beasts, even though they have yet to unearth usable material in Siberia.

But the man who came up with the idea, scientist Kazufumi Goto, will not be deterred.

“It is technically possible (to produce mammoth calves) if we can get healthy DNA,” said Goto, a former professor of reproductive physiology at Kagoshima University in southern Japan.

Goto said he succeeded in fertilizing an egg from a cow with dead sperm in 1990.

This gave him the idea of producing a hybrid of a mammoth and elephant using the DNA of an Ice Age mammoth trapped in permafrost to artificially inseminate an elephant cow.

“People tend to compare this with ‘Jurassic Park’ but the current scientific technology is a far cry from putting together dissembled DNA,” he stressed.

He said he would not give up the team’s dream.

“Tusks and teeth (of mammoths) have been found, but no complete carcass. I’m always waiting for good news from Siberia,” he said.

Goto’s team is collecting information on likely mammoth graveyards from Russian scientists and indigenous Siberians.

Goto has turned to a company dealing in trade with Russia for tips on finding mammoths.

The company, called Field and based in the southern Japanese prefecture of Miyazaki, launched the Mammoth Creation Society by roping in biologists and other scientific personnel.

“We have a concept of a ‘Pleistocene Park’ where moose, sabre-toothed tigers, ancient foxes and other animals seen in the era of mammoths would live in a sanctuary as well as mammoths, if possible,” said the society’s Yukiko Tokunaga.

—AFP