(TIME) – If you’ve been excitedly awaiting the return of the woolly mammoth, you’ll have to be patient a little longer. It was in 2021 that the newly established, Dallas-based company Colossal Biosciences announced plans to use modern gene-editing technology and DNA harvested from mammoth remains to manufacture a mammoth embryo, implant it in the womb of an elephant surrogate, and bring the great, gentle, six-ton beast—which vanished from the planet more than 4,000 years ago—back into the modern world. The target date for a pregnancy was 2027; the target date for the birth was 2028.

No more. In a recent conversation with TIME, Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm concedes that those goal posts have moved more than a little. “We are thinking it will be in the early 2030s,” he says. “We don’t have a hard date. Not 2036, but not 2030 either.” (Read More)