Gene drives are engineerable biological factors that raise the probability of a particular gene being passed on. They could be used to drive many wild species to extinction by promoting genes that makes one sex infertile.

Closes yes if we end up in a situation where anyone who knew the relevant biology (without very much additional specialist technical knowledge) could secretly develop and install a gene drive in a wild animal for less than 80,000 USD (inflation adjusted to 2024 USD).

Closes no in the case of the establishment of a regulatory regime, or a thoroughly pervasive community/industry standard in biotech device manufacturing that makes such actions difficult enough that the perpetrators would be likely to get caught.