A 133-year-old pickled Tasmanian Tiger has found itself at the center of a cat fight involving cloners and conservationists.
Earlier this week, the state government of New South Wales announced the formation of a special government/private trust aimed at spurring research on how the extinct species might be resurrected using DNA from the pup, bottled in alcohol since 1866.
The hope is the animal's DNA could be extracted by geneticists and eventually used to fertilize one of its closest living relatives, perhaps the Numbat or Tasmanian Devil.
It's a tall order.
But clearly everyone's been raising their sights since the Dolly the Sheep crowd made their big splash.
"The benefit of returning the tiger to a viable population would be incalculable," said Don Colgan, head of the evolutionary biology department of the Australian Museum, which owns the pickled tiger. "It would be a triumph for Australian science."
Like much of Australia's other fauna, the Tasmanian Tiger was an odd beast.
Looking more like a hungry alley dog than a tiger, its most remarkable feature was a series of vertical stripes over its hindquarters. Researchers generally call it the Thylacine, a term derived from the scientific name Thylacinus cynocephalus. It is the only member of the Family Thylacinidae.
Whatever it's called, it had a tough time. The last known living specimen died in a Tasmanian Zoo in 1936, after a century of relentless hunting by early Australian settlers who saw it as a threat to livestock.
Therefore, if the cloning project succeeds, it should go down in history as the world's first effort to resurrect a species made extinct by man.
But then what?
In addition to marking a giant new stride in the area of cloning, the project could one day result in reintroduction of the animals to the wild, backers say. With at least six Tasmanian Tigers swimming in alcohol in museums around the world, a fledgling gene pool might be created that could eventually prove self-sustaining, Colgan said.
But the effort won't be cheap. Achieving the birth of a cloned Tasmanian Tiger -- if it can be done at all -- could cost upwards of US$20-30 million, possibly more.
It's lunacy, say conservationists.
"This is just boys playing with genetic toys," said Michael Lynch, manager of the Tasmanian Conservation Trust in Hobart. "We could better take that money and put it into saving the species we humans already are driving to extinction every year."
Nick Mooney, manager of the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife department, agreed. He said the project takes away from what should be a focus on conservation.
But Colgan says that even $30 million wouldn't be nearly enough to fund all the land purchases necessary to sustain viable long-term populations of currently endangered species.
Indeed, much of the work needed for the Thylacine cloning project will involve research on the reproductive genetics and biology of living creatures, and the outcomes should lead directly to related breakthroughs in conservation efforts for species such as the Numbat and the Tasmanian Devil.
"From an evolutionary biologist's point of view, we should be looking at the longer term, such as 200-300 years out," Colgan said. "And this whole research area is where you should be looking if you really want to save species."
