By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 31.05.2002 (IPS): Scientists at the Australian Museum here were visibly jubilant when they announced recently that they are closer to resurrecting the Tasmanian tiger from extinction through cloning, but other scientists and environmentalists have greeted the news with more sobriety.

Indeed, many are raising questions about the multimillion-dollar project, including whether or not it will help in biodiversity conservation in Australia.

Although these experts concede that the cloning is a “breakthrough”, they argue that conventional conservation deserves more time, energy and resources than it is getting right now, and that technology should be directed towards preserving endangered species, not extinct mammals.

For instance, Nick Mooney of the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Services believes the cloning of the Tasmanian tiger – also known as the thylacine — is nothing more than a glamorous, “urban-centric” issue that does not go down well in the bush.

“Cloning an extinct species provides a technological quick fix,” he says. “It runs the risk of distracting people from preserving what we have. Tasmania has record land clearing rates, we still can’t manage the wolves there. Introducing a cloned thylacine might even be counter-productive.”

Mooney also frets, “To spend millions of dollars on a project where the thylacine will not go out of captivity and to teach people that extinction is not forever is extremely dangerous. It takes away the motivation to conserve species in the wild.”

Named the Tasmanian Tiger for its stripes, the thylacine was a carnivorous marsupial that was closely related to the wombat. It was two feet high and up to four feet long without the tail and with a gaping, sharp-fanged mouth.

A full-grown thylacine measured about 180 cm (six ft) from nose to tail tip, stood about 58 cm (two ft) high at the shoulder and weighed up to 30 kg.

It had brown short, soft fur enhanced by 13 to 20 dark brown-black stripes that extended from its tail base to almost the shoulders. Its stiff tail became thicker towards the base and appeared to merge with the body.

Until about 3,300 years ago, it roamed the mainland of Australia, Tasmania and Papua New Guinea. By the time the Europeans reached Australasia, it was confined to the south-eastern island of Tasmania.

In just 70 years, the new settlers hunted the animal to extinction. The last known thylacine died in the Hobart zoo in 1936.

Searches and expeditions for the animal continue with more than 300 sightings reported, but no definite evidence of a live thylacine has been found since it was officially declared extinct in 1986.

Earlier this month, however, a team of scientists at the Australian Museum succeeded in replicating individual Tamanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) genes using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) process.

The scientists had first managed to extract “good quality” DNA from a 136-year-old female Tasmanian tiger pup preserved in ethanol, and more recently, from the bones, teeth and dried muscle of two male specimens found in the museum’s collection.

“We are now further ahead than any other project that has attempted anything remotely similar using extinct DNA,” says Australian Museum director Mike Archer. “Once an impossible dream, it has just taken another giant step closer to becoming a biological reality.”

Conventional animal cloning requires first, the DNA with a complete set of genes from the nucleus of an adult cell. Then there should be an egg with most of its own DNA removed to “host” the source DNA and create an embryo. Last comes a surrogate mother to bring the embryo to term.

The first problem facing the museum’s scientists is to assemble millions of fragments of DNA into the right order of genes and non-gene sequences, which have to be assembled into chromosomes and then into the complete genetic sequence, the genome.

They then hope to use the Tasmanian devil or the Numbat for eggs and surrogacy.

The scientists say the clones would not all be kept in captivity, since the ultimate goal of the research project is to create a group of genetically diverse thylacines for eventual release into their natural habitat.

Archer is confident other museum or trophy specimens of thylacines would provide enough DNA for a colony of genetically diverse male and female clones.

At the moment, however, the museum’s geneticist, Dr. Karen Firestone, admits they have only replicated fragments of DNA, not entire genes, and very small fragments at that. In truth, the actual cloning of the thylacine may take up to a decade or more.

Michael Westerman, an evolutionary molecular biologist with La Trobe University in Melbourne, also says that while the work so far has been “frontier-piercing stuff” he cautions that the museum’s scientists “‘have a long way to go”.

To be sure, some observers have found it too convenient that the museum chose to “reveal” the progress in the project at the same time as the announcement of the premiere run of a documentary, ‘The End of Extinction: Cloning the Tasmanian Tiger’ on the Discovery Channel beginning Jul. 7.

To be aired in 155 countries, the documentary traces the work done by the Australian Museum scientists on the thylacine.

Regardless of any documentary, though, there are those who say all the efforts to clone the Tasmanian tiger are worth it. Dr. Robert Paddle, author of the ‘Last Tasmanian Tiger’, insists: “(The) cloning of the thylacine very much represents the restoration of ecology.”

“The thylacine,” he notes, “represented a fabricated rural scapegoat to hide inefficient farming practices.”

“It was persecuted as a ‘sheep killer’ before the government introduced a bounty on its head,” continues Paddle. “It is an iconic Australian animal, representing history and continuity, which we have made extinct. We need to accept the consequences of our actions and correct our mistakes.”

Yet there remains much scepticism over the merits of recreating a species that has no family or mate and its reintroduction to a rapidly dwindling natural environment.

Comments anthropologist Lesley Head, associate professor at the School of Geosciences, University of Woolongong: “This project is about science not about conservation, it is about Australia’s unfinished attempts to come to terms with its colonial past.”

“We need,” she says, “to protect the species we have and preserve their habitats. Putting a cloned thylacine in a 2010 Tasmania would be very different from a 1930s or 1850s Tasmania. The habitat, the predator and prey relationships and nature of human occupations have changed.”

© Copyright Neena Bhandari. All rights reserved. Republication, copying or using information from neenabhandari.com content is expressly prohibited without the permission of the writer and the media outlet syndicating or publishing the article.