Aha. So for these extinct species, we're not just mapping their genome. We're interpreting their DNA as well. The problem is that entire process takes a lot of time. We've mapped the human genome, but we're not expected to get really useful information out of it for another 5 years because we don't know what the long string of letters means. We're not even sure what all the important parts are (some parts aren't important).
It would be even worse if we did the same thing for all the endangered animals. If we genetically engineer them so that the problems of inbreeding don't occur, we'd have to know exactly which parts of their genome means what. Otherwise, our tampering may produce pandas with five arms (or something similarly undesirable).
The number of endangered species is, what, 70 or so? I don't recall exactly, but there are a lot of them. None of them has a genome as long as humans', but it's plenty long enough that it would take a few years just to map each one. And then to interpret each one would take another few years. And then to develop genetic engineering techniques for each one would take perhaps another year or two (you have to use a different technique for each animals because all their eggs look different, for one thing). All of this costs money. It would cost several billion dollars at least. Billions that could be put to much better use such as stopping the cutting of rainforests, curbing pollution or stopping whatever other activities we are engaging in that make animals endangered or extinct.
By the way, did I mention that during those years when we're researching the genome of animals, they're still dying off from the things humans do? The fact is, Ric, your solution only treats the symptoms without dealing with the disease. Artificially keeping pandas alive isn't going to help them if we keep destroying the bamboo plants that they eat. It's possible to save pandas, for example, if we would stop destroying their habitat, but doing so requires money, and I think it's far better to spend money on preserving panda habitats than throwing it away cloning them.
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