section_path: Current candidate species for de-extinction/Steller's sea cow
section_name: Steller's sea cow
paragraph_text: Steller's sea cow
  
  The Steller's sea cow was a sirenian endemic to Bering Sea between Russia and the United States but had a much larger range during the Pleistocene. First described by Georg Wilhelm Steller in 1741, it was hunted to extinction 27 years later due to its buoyancy making it an easy target for humans hunting it for its meat and fur in addition to an already low population caused by climate change. In 2021, the nuclear genome of the species was sequenced. In late 2022, a group of Russian scientists funded by Sergei Bachin began their project to revive and reintroduce the giant sirenian to its former range in the 18th century to restore its kelp forest ecosystem. Arctic Sirenia plans to revive the species through genome editing of the dugong, but they need an artificial womb to conceive a live animal due to lack of an adequate surrogate species. Ben Lamm of Colossal Biosciences has also expressed desire to revive the species once his company develops an artificial womb.