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Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Roger
Bassi and I'm Megan Nolette. Spotlight uses

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a special English method of broadcasting.
It is easier for people to understand no

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matter where in the world they live. It is nineteen thirty six. An

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animal is walking behind bars in a
zoo on the island of Tasmania. This

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animal is a strange one. It
looks a little like a dog, but

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it has dark stripes running down its
back like a tiger, and it can

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open its mouth very wide, almost
eighty degrees. Its tail is long and

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thin, with very little hair.
The animal smells the floor behind the bars,

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then it looks out at the people
watching it. It is called a

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thylosine. It is also known as
a Tasmanian tiger. It has been named

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Benjamin, and it is the last
of its kind. In several weeks,

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Benjamin will die. With his death, the Tasmanian tiger will become extinct.

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It will no longer exist anywhere on
the earth. This would be the end

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of most animals. Once an animal
goes extinct, there's usually no hope of

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bringing it back. But the Tasmanian
tiger may be different, and today scientists

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are working on a technology that once
seemed impossible. They are hoping to bring

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the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction.
Today's Spotlight Advanced is on the de extinction

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of the Tasmanian tiger. The Tasmanian
tiger is very important to the Australian island

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of Tasmania. It once lived all
over the Australian continent, but around three

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thousand years ago the tigers began to
die out there. By the eighteen hundreds,

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they were gone from most of Australia. Europeans began settling in Tasmania in

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eighteen twenty five. By that time
there were only five thousand Tasmanian tigers left.

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This animal was also special. It
was a marsupial. Marsupials give birth

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to their young very early in life. Female marsupials have special bags of skin

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or pouches as part of their bodies. When a tiny marsupial is born,

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it lives in this pouch. The
tiny baby is able to drink milk inside

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its mother's pouch and continue to grow. The baby can leave and return to

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its mother's pouch for months. The
Tasmanian tiger was the largest meat eating Marsupial.

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Sadly, Europeans in Australia did not
understand how special the Tasmanian tiger was

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when they arrived in Tasmania. They
thought the Tasmanian tiger might be dangerous.

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They blamed it for killing their farm
animals. They thought it might even hurt

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children, so they began hunting it. The government even paid money for Tasmanian

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tiger's skins. When people understood that
they had made a mistake, it was

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too late. By nineteen thirty six, there was only one Tasmanian tiger left.

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Humans had hunted the Tasmanian tiger to
extinction, but the Tasmanian tiger's memory

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is still very strong in Australia.
Since its extinction, it has become a

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symbol of Tasmania. It is the
official symbol of the Tasmanian state. It

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is even the symbol of the island's
cricket team. This may be one reason

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why scientists are trying to bring this
tiger back. It is important to Tasmanian

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identity. Andrew pask Is, a
scientist at the University of Melbourne. Is

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also the head of a laboratory called
tiggr It is responsible for one attempt at

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bringing the Tasmanian tiger back. Pask
spoke to Al Jazeera News about his reason

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for trying. I think there is
nothing that nears the amazingness of the Tasmanian

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tiger. It was an amazing,
beautiful marsupial, but humans viciously hunted it

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to extinction. We owe it to
the tigers to spend the time and money

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to return them to their environment.
It is a way to repair some of

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the wrong we have done in the
past. Pask's goals are very challenging.

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No one has ever brought an animal
back from extinction before, though other attempts

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have been made. Pask's goal is
to try a different method. His project

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will start with DNA taken from the
remains of Tasmanian tigers. DNA is a

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special chemical found in most living things. Each individual animal has its own special

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DNA, but each kind of animal
also has DNA that it shares with other

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animals that are the same kind.
This is called the animal's genome. Using

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the Tasmanian tiger DNA, Pask hopes
to find what its genome looked like.

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He also hopes to do the same
for another animal called the fat tailed Dunnart.

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The fat tailed Dunnart is a mouse
like marsupial that eats meat like the

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Tasmanian tiger did. The Dunnart has
DNA that is a lot like the Tasmanian

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tigers. By comparing the two,
Pask will be able to see where they're

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different, and he will try to
change the DNA in the cell of a

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Dunnart. If he succeeds, the
cell will be the same as a Tasmanian

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tigers. From there, he will
place the cell inside a Dunnert egg and

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that egg could grow into a baby
Tasmanian tiger. For Pask and others like

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him, there are no negative signs
to bringing back the Tasmanian tiger, and

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his project has gained millions of dollars
from investors, but there are still many

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difficulties in the way. Other scientists
have questions. Some argue that it is

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simply not possible. They argue that
the Dunnart's DNA is far too different from

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a Tasmanian tigers to change. Some
say that even if the project worked,

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it would not create a true Tasmanian
tiger. Others believe that the project is

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troubling. Other kinds of animals in
Tasmania are dying every day, but less

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money is going to help these animals
than for an already extinct animal. They

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argue it makes more sense to help
animals that are still alive, such as

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the Tasmanian devil. Others are not
sure if a new Tasmanian tiger would be

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able to live without human help.
Carol Freeman is an animal studies researcher at

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the University of Tasmania. She points
out that the procedure involves animal experimentation,

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and she is afraid that these experiments
will cause animal suffering. She spoke to

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Scientific American about her own concerns.
The whole conversation is about bringing this animal

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back. What's concern for the individual
animals is not really talked about. Their

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suffering is not right for such an
unsure result, it would be many years,

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if ever, that these Tasmanian tigers
could have anything like the life they

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may have had in the wild.
Even with these difficulties, Pask is positive

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his ideas will win out. He
is sure that he can and should bring

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back the Tasmanian tiger. He even
believes it could happen within the next ten

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years. He spoke to the Cable
news network about what he hopes. Our

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final goal with this technology is to
restore this animal to the wild. They

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had a very important part in nature, so our final hope is that you

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would be seeing them in Tasmania again
one day. What do you think about

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PASKS project? Do you think it
is possible? Do you think it is

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a good idea to bring an animal
back from extinction. We want to hear

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your thoughts. You can leave a
comment on our website or email us at

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Spotlight English dot com. You can
also comment on Facebook at Facebook dot com

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slash Spotlight Radio. The writer and
producer of this program was Dan Chrisman.

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The voices you heard were from the
United States. All quotes were adapted for

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this program and voiced by Spotlight.
You can listen to this program again and

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read it on the internet at www
dot Spotlight English dot com. This program

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is called Hope for the Tasmanian Tiger. You can also get our programs delivered

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directly to your Android or Apple device
through our free official Spotlight English app.

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We hope you can join us again
for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye