Speaker A
Bob Lanza doesn't agree with trying to clone everything, for him the criteria is that an animal must have somewhere appropriate to live once it's cloned.
Exploring the possibility and challenges of cloning the extinct Tasmanian tiger and its habitat restoration.
Key Takeaways
- Cloning extinct species requires suitable habitats, which are increasingly rare due to environmental degradation.
- Strong cultural and emotional ties to extinct animals can drive interest in cloning despite scientific skepticism.
- There is no concrete evidence that thylacines still exist, though many claim sightings.
- Cloning as a conservation tool faces ethical, ecological, and financial criticisms from various groups.
- Scientific advances in cloning hybrids demonstrate potential but also underline the complexity of de-extinction.
Summary
- Bob Lanza emphasizes cloning only animals with suitable habitats for reintroduction.
- Tasmania's cultural connection to the thylacine is strong, with many believing it may still exist.
- Col Bailey is a firm believer in the thylacine's survival, while Mike Archer is a skeptic focused on habitat viability.
- The video documents a trek into remote Tasmanian wilderness, the last known habitat of the thylacine.
- Logging and habitat destruction pose major challenges to any potential reintroduction.
- Scientific skepticism remains high due to lack of evidence of surviving thylacines despite numerous sightings.
- Environmentalists criticize cloning as a 'soft option' that may reduce efforts to prevent extinctions.
- The cloning debate is complicated by ethical concerns and public suspicion linked to human cloning fears.
- An example of a successful hybrid animal cloning experiment (camel-guanaco) is presented to illustrate scientific possibilities.
- The video highlights the moral and ecological complexities involved in de-extinction efforts.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker B
It's hard to believe that they actually have footage of this animal, you know, it hasn't been extinct that long, so obviously there must still be some habitat left.
Speaker B
So, I think it would be really great if you're able to bring this animal back to life.
Speaker A
So, what's the feeling back in Tasmania now that someone wants to bring their top marsupial predator back to life?
Speaker A
Well, they see things rather differently down there.
Speaker A
Everywhere you look, there are thylacine signs, thylacine toys, thylacine souvenirs, and strangest of all, thylacines on Tasmania's coat of arms, the emblem of the state that ordained its persecution and its destruction.
Speaker A
It makes you wonder if it's really extinct.
Speaker A
And there are plenty who'll swear that it's not.
Speaker A
Col Bailey is one of them, he's convinced some thylacines are still out there in the remotest regions of what is largely an uninhabited Tasmanian wilderness.
Speaker A
The snow is just melting on the Tasmanian Highlands, feeding icy streams which flow into the forests far below.
Speaker A
So it's into here that Col Bailey, the true believer, and Mike Archer, the scientific skeptic, set off on a trek.
Speaker A
For Col, it's a chance to win another convert.
Speaker A
But Mike has his own agenda.
Speaker A
He wants to check out the thylacine habitat.
Speaker A
They're heading into a remote forest which still boasts some of the world's tallest trees.
Speaker C
That's a giant.
Speaker D
Yeah, it should be 100 meters, 100 meters tall that one.
Speaker C
It'd be about 320 feet.
Speaker D
Yeah, that's about right.
Speaker C
That's a tree.
Speaker A
If Mike is to bring his thylacine back to life, he'll need somewhere to put it. Their destination is the place where the last thylacines were caught back in the 1920s.
Speaker A
It's not long before they're in the depths of tiger country.
Speaker C
This wouldn't be one of the kind of places that you might expect a thylacine to put up.
Speaker D
Oh, where it is, yeah, that's the sort of place you'd expect him to hide up during the day, it's not a real lair as such, but it's a hiding place for them.
Speaker C
Suit me in a rainstorm.
Speaker D
It's a beauty, isn't it? Yes, that's that's the typical where you could expect them to hide up.
Speaker A
Deep in these Antarctic beech forests, the ferns and mosses seem so ancient, so primordial, that it's hard to believe anything could become extinct here.
Speaker A
Maybe that's why it's so easy to get caught up in thylacine ghost stories.
Speaker C
This is a man who is convinced thylacines are still out there in the bush, and although I'm an arch skeptic, having talked to him,
Speaker C
the magic of the feelings that he has about the thylacine still surviving is irresistible.
Speaker C
It's very difficult not to find yourself totally in that vortex where you accept that they are still out there, still still watching us in the bush.
Speaker A
Even when thylacines were plentiful, they were seldom seen.
Speaker A
They were usually solitary animals, occasionally they hunted in family groups.
Speaker A
Often bushwalkers felt they were being watched, but to actually see one in the open, you'd have to catch it unaware.
Speaker A
But back to reality, there are no ghosts here.
Speaker A
Only the smell of charred timber.
Speaker A
You don't have to walk far in Tasmania to find the destruction left by the timber cutters.
Speaker C
It's appalling, it just takes your breath away, this was once beautiful bush, this once was prowled by thylacines.
Speaker C
By all the extraordinary creatures of Tasmania, and now it's a devastated charcoal wasteland.
Speaker A
At this rate, not only will Mike Archer have to recreate a thylacine, he'll have to recreate its environment as well.
Speaker A
Now, they're reaching the climax of their journey.
Speaker A
This is where the last thylacines were caught in the wild.
Speaker D
Back in 1924, Elias Churchill caught one of the last tigers alive in this valley and it was ended up in the Hobart Zoo.
Speaker D
One of the last six tigers caught in Tasmania.
Speaker C
That makes this kind of special.
Speaker C
Could be one watching us now.
Speaker A
And so, yet another tiger hunt comes to an end with its inevitable conclusion.
Speaker A
In all the time that Col Bailey has scoured Tasmania looking for them, he's never seen one.
Speaker A
Only his unshakable faith carries him on.
Speaker C
Col, I got to ask you this, mate, I know I know that there's all the service.
Speaker C
But do you really in your heart of hearts, you really think they still exist?
Speaker D
I'm 100% sure they do exist.
Speaker D
No doubt in my mind at all, and I'm amazed that no one has has pinged one has come up with one.
Speaker D
But it'll happen, I guarantee it'll happen.
Speaker C
Okay, but if you find one, would you consider giving it to us so we could use that to clone the thing back?
Speaker D
What do you need to clone one for when they're still here?
Speaker A
And in Tasmania, there are many who would agree with him.
Speaker A
Nearly everyone knows someone who claims to have seen a thylacine.
Speaker E
Yeah.
Speaker F
I do, yeah.
Speaker E
Yeah.
Speaker F
I think there's old one around.
Speaker G
Oh, they're certainly still out there.
Speaker G
There's no doubt at all.
Speaker A
But in reality, there's not a shred of evidence that they still exist, just ask the man whose job it is to investigate all so-called sightings.
Speaker H
I think it's very unlikely the animal still exists, but it is possible.
Speaker C
So if you had to put money on it, I'd put money against it.
Speaker H
There's some very, very basic reasons for saying that.
Speaker H
And one is through improvements in primary production in the state, um, through regrowth in forestry, through new pastures we have, new crops we have, vastly more wallabies and thylacine prey species than we had probably ever in history, so we should have more thylacines than ever in history.
Speaker A
And if it's gone, many would prefer that it stayed that way.
Speaker A
By trying to roll back the tide of extinction, Mike Archer could find himself stepping into a moral minefield with accusations that he's meddling with the mysteries of creation.
Speaker A
But criticism has actually come from other quarters, the environmental movement and the scientific community.
Speaker A
So now accusations that he's playing God are the least of his concern.
Speaker H
I see cloning as a very soft option.
Speaker H
It's it gives people an easy way out, it's like saying extinction isn't forever, we can fix it up later when things are a little bit better, and if that attitude permeates, then we're going to have nobody worrying too much about extinctions.
Speaker I
I have a very strong view that there should be no no more money wasted on trying to clone the thylacine.
Speaker I
I think there are if there are some particular molecular reason for doing it, please tell us.
Speaker I
Because it's not apparent to any of us.
Speaker I
I think you should forget about that and get on with doing something more useful.
Speaker A
Now, there are those people who have said to us this is an impossible dream, you're nuts, you know, go do something useful, make hamburgers for a living or whatever, but stop this waste of time, this waste of money.
Speaker A
I can't help thinking about somebody like Lord Kelvin who in 1895, um, made the comment, 1895, that heavier than air machines were never ever going to fly.
Speaker A
The trouble is, clone has become a dirty word.
Speaker A
One that's now linked with the issue of human cloning.
Speaker A
And it also arouses suspicion of scientists in their laboratories creating Frankensteins, monsters and freaks.
Speaker A
Well, meet a freak, the result of an extraordinary experiment that took place in the Arab Emirate of Dubai.
Speaker J
This is my boy, this is Rama the camel, he's a cross between a camel and a guanaco, and he was born in three and a half years ago in January.
Speaker J
Gorgeous boy.
Speaker A
Rama is a human creation, he owes his existence to a scientist, Dr Lulu Skidmore.
Speaker A
Arabian camels and South American guanacos or llamas are very distantly related, their common evolutionary ancestor living some 11 million years ago.
Speaker A
Not only is there a huge evolutionary gulf, but the size difference also makes it impossible for them to mate.
Speaker A
So, again, semen had to be brought together by artificial insemination to create this hybrid.
Speaker A
But there were other problems.
Speaker J
A camel is in fact 13 months gestation, and a guanaco should be about 11.
Speaker J
So we assumed he'd be born around 12 months gestation, but in actual fact, he was born after 10 and a half.
Speaker J
Um, which was quite a surprise to us.
Speaker J
And a surprise to his mum too.
Speaker J
And so much so that she didn't actually have any milk, um, so we had to hand rear him.
Speaker J
Because of that, he's obviously become very imprinted on human beings.
Speaker J
And he now thinks he's sort of half human as well.
Speaker A
Good boy.
Speaker A
But Rama is no longer unique.
Speaker A
Another cama has been born, this time a female, and she's called Camilla.
Speaker A
And if they're not sterile.
Speaker A
And it's a big if.
Speaker A
Lulu will have created a self-perpetuating hybrid species in a laboratory, and they'll be lovable camas, not Frankenstein monsters.
Speaker A
And it's a laboratory animal that Mike Archer and his team will have to create if the Tasmanian tiger is to live again.
Speaker A
But they had a problem.
Speaker A
They couldn't make enough copies of thylacine DNA.
Speaker A
At least not until one morning in February 2002, when Karen Firestone made a breakthrough.
Speaker A
She summoned Mike Archer.
Speaker A
Not only had she managed to replicate some thylacine DNA.
Speaker A
She'd managed to make millions of copies.
Speaker A
Pure copies of DNA fragments, undamaged and unmistakably thylacine.
Speaker A
For Mike Archer and his team.
Speaker A
It would be their second Eureka moment.
Speaker A
What do you got?
Speaker K
Thylacine sequence.
Speaker A
Aha.
Speaker A
Aha.
Speaker A
So this is the results of the PCR breakthrough.
Speaker K
Yep.
Speaker A
Yeah, um.
Speaker K
Really nice.
Speaker A
Yes, all the bases showing up nicely.
Speaker A
All the sequences for the first time, thylacine DNA had shown it could potentially work in a living cell.
Speaker K
Best match down here is the thylacine.
Speaker A
As we would expect.
Speaker A
So another major stumbling block falls over, another thing we were never supposed to be able to do happens.
Speaker A
Brilliant.
Speaker A
Well done.
Speaker A
Well done.
Speaker A
Now, they'll store it in a biological library, each gene fragment fixed in living bacteria.
Speaker A
At a microscopic level at least, pieces of thylacine will soon move back into the land of the living.
Speaker L
There are three critically important things about the library, firstly, it gives us a living copying mechanism for the thylacine genes, secondly, it enables us to make as much of each of the thylacine genes as we want to, and thirdly, it allows us to begin sequencing the thylacine genome.
Speaker A
And just assuming they can do all this, the process of bringing our thylacine back from extinction might begin like this.
Speaker A
It starts at a microscopic level when scientists inject a reconstructed thylacine genome into a tiny host cell.
Speaker A
The DNA in the nucleus starts to interact with the outer cell DNA.
Speaker A
By now, our embryo has moved to the next vital step, a mother's pouch.
Speaker A
It needs a surrogate mother.
Speaker A
One selected from a related species.
Speaker A
This is one of them, a tiger quoll.
Speaker A
A carnivorous marsupial, which is itself endangered.
Speaker A
But there's another relative.
Speaker A
The quarrelsome Tasmanian devil.
Speaker A
While neither the quoll or the devil are particularly close genetically to a thylacine, the devil has the bigger pouch.
Speaker A
Whoa, we, look at that.
Speaker A
What you can see here is two little tails hanging out and a little bit of the torso of two little devils.
Speaker A
They're now eight weeks of age.
Speaker A
Meet Dolly the Devil, and she loves a cuddle.
Speaker A
For an animal with such a fearsome reputation, she seems very loving and maternal.
Speaker A
Her pouch is one she can open and close.
Speaker A
It's the sort of pouch that may one day nurture our thylacine.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
May work for a motherless thylacine.
Speaker A
As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
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What works for these devil cubs.
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May work for a motherless thylacine.
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As our young thylacine grows.
Speaker A
It will need a mother's milk.
Speaker A
No one knows what a thylacine's milk was like.
Speaker A
But there's always the bottle.
Speaker A
What works for these devil cubs.
Speaker A
In the end, I've got to do this.
Speaker A
The obsession in me about thylacines is going to drive this project forward, and the people that are with me have the same shared obsession.
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I don't know if this is a waste of time as some people say it is, I have no idea whether we're going to accomplish what we want to accomplish, but I know we're going to try.
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And I have this vision.
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Of a thylacine, a beautiful animal, not just a single thylacine.
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But a whole population of thylacines, living, breathing, eating, breeding.
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Back in Tasmania where they belong before we unfairly, in an ungodlike manner, exterminated them.
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I think we can do this.
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We may be asking too much at the moment of technology, we may be ahead of what technology can actually do at this point.
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But if the vision stays out in front of the game and leads, I think we've got that chance, we've got that chance of having our dream actually come true.
Speaker A
Whether Mike Archer's dream does come true or not, they'll almost certainly make many scientific discoveries along the way.
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Some may advance the cause of science, others the cause of medicine.
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One day, scientists may even breathe life into many other extinct and bottled animals stored in museums around the world.
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But if the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine does live again, it'll be due to the vision and drive of one man.
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A man who wants to reverse what he sees as a great crime of the 20th century.
Speaker A
And if the advances in science keep pace with Mike Archer's vision, he and his team may well bring about the end of extinction.
Topics:Tasmanian tigerthylacinecloningde-extinctionTasmaniawildlife conservationhabitat restorationextinct speciesscientific skepticismethical debate
