"Stupendously Overweight Birds", Feral Dogs, and James T. Kirk

Ok, so I have a very serious scientific question with dramatic implications to the greater world.

It seems, in the news at least, that science has reached a point where they can clone pretty much anything, right? (Or at least they're on the cusp of it). So MY question is why hasn't anyone tried to clone the DoDo bird? They have the DoDo's DNA, since they've been able to establish that it was related to the pigeon [clearly the Dodo was the pride of the family, of course. The pigeon is more of the Roger Clinton of the line]. I mean, frankly, I don't see any downside. Who wouldn't want a pet Dodo? According to the FarSide (an authoritative source on extinct species), the Dodo would offer a lot to society. Plus you could open a theme park. Call it "Stupendously Overweight Bird-World," perhaps. And luckily, there's a good chance that the Dodo wouldn't escape and eat the tourists (although if they did, how awesome would that be. You could even charge more). But I'm digressing.
I think we should start a letter-writing campaign and get federal funding for DoDo cloning. Who could be against it? I picture PETA freaks and Feral Dogs everywhere holding hands and singing songs. It would be a beautiful thing. And we can make it happen.

Naturally, I've given a lot of thought to this Dodo thing, searching deep down in my soul. In the course of my introspection, another thought came to mind. In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, you may remember that Kirk and crew had to steal a Klingon Warbird and go back in time (naturally, by speeding around earth in the opposite direction as its natural rotation. Duh!) in order to capture a Humpback whale (which were extinct in the future present of the world where San Francisco was the world capital [with Berkeley as the spiritual?]), so that they could bring it back to the future and save the Earth from a giant glowing cigar (I might be approximating the plot a bit). Anyway, Star Trek is normally pretty good as an general predictor of scientific/technological trends. How, then, did Mr. Roddenberry not consider that the impact of cloning (which is clearly present in the Star Trek universe) could eliminate the concept of extinction? What gives? If anyone has any thoughts as to the answer to this vexing question, I'm all ears. My vote is for liberal Hollywood bias...naturally.