Visitors to the Museum can see species whose more recent extinctions were caused by human activity, like the Dodo or the Passenger Pigeon, until the early 1900s among North America's most plentiful birds.
In the not-too-distant future, scientists expect that technological breakthroughs, using genetic data from specimens of extinct species, will provide ways to revive vanished species. In this video, Museum Curator Ross MacPhee discusses the science and ethical considerations of "de-extinction."