[panel 1: a large dodo approaches a clean, well dressed vagrant youth sat beside a well fashioned wood and stone building. The youth warily guards a bag holding their belongings and the stick they use to travel with it. The dodo asks “Pardon me, do you have the time?” and the youth replies “yes, it’s -“]
[panel 2: the dodo exclaims “You have the time!”]
[panel 3: a quartet of dodos appear and excitedly chatter over one another: “He has the time.” “The time! he has it!” “At long last! Our desperate search is at an end! The time has been found!”]
[panel 4: they lean in amongst one another and whisper “PSSHHWSSSSPTT SSHSSHHPSSTT”]
[panel 5: the group approaches the youth and asks “Will you… give us the time?” And the youth replies “It’s nine fifteen.” The dodos exclaim “AAAAAHHH! NOW WE HAVE THE TIME!”]
As apposed to “for the science”… which actually is one of the major tropes in horror? Quite possibly one of the oldest (though supernatural horrors were the first.)
Even if I were that dense… these people are forgetting to ask if they should bring that specific species back. There are so many others to choose from; they went with the media hype rather the useful-science route.
It’s unlikely that the dodo’s ecological role hasn’t already been filled by something else in the 4+ centuries it’s been absent.
Its return to the wild would likely pressure otherwise extant species that have stepped into that roll; and it’s unlikely to survive in the wild anyway- it’s not like we’ve stopped altering the world in its absence.
So that will relegate a species relatively artificial existence to being research or a novelty- a curiosity in zoos or food or something else. Maybe even an exclusive private island tourist trap…