Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Roger Basset and I'm Megan Nolette. Spotlight uses a
special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter
where in the world they live. It is nineteen thirty six. An animal
is walking behind bars in a zoo on the island of Tasmania. This animal
is a strange one. It looks a little like a dog, but it
has dark stripes running down its back like a tiger, and it can open
its mouth very wide, almost eighty degrees. Its tail is long and thin,
with very little hair. The animal smells the floor behind the bars,
then it looks out at the people watching it. It is called a thylocine.
It is also known as a Tasmanian tiger. It has been named Benjamin,
and it is the last of its kind. In several weeks, Benjamin
will die. With his death, the Tasmanian tiger will become extinct. It
will no longer exist anywhere on the earth. This would be the end of
most animals. Once an animal goes extinct, there is usually no hope of
bringing it back. But the Tasmanian tiger may be different, and today scientists
are working on a technology that once seemed impossible. They are hoping to bring
the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction. Today's spotlight is on the d extinction of
the Tasmanian tiger. The Tasmanian tiger is very important to the Australian island of
Tasmania. It once lived all over the Australian continent, but around three thousand
years ago the tigers began to die out there. By the eighteen hundreds,
they were gone from most of Australia. Europeans began settling in Tasmania in eighteen
twenty five. By that time there were only five thousand Tasmanian tigers left.
This animal was also special. It was a marsupial. Marsupials give birth to
their young very early in life. Female marsupials have special bags of skin or
pouches as part of their bodies. When a tiny marsupial is born, it
lives in this pouch. The tiny baby is able to drink milk inside its
mother's pouch and continue to grow. The baby can leave and return to its
mother's pouch for months. The Tasmanian tiger was the largest meat eating marsupial Sadly,
Europeans in Australia did not understand how special the Tasmanian tiger was when they
arrived in Tasmania. They thought the Tasmanian tiger might be dangerous. They blamed
it for killing their farm animals. They thought it might even hurt children,
so they began hunting it. The government even paid money for Tasmanian tiger skins.
When people understood that they had made a mistake, it was too late.
By nineteen thirty six, there was only one Tasmanian tiger left. Humans
had hunted the Tasmanian tiger to extinction, but the Tasmanian tiger's memory is still
very strong in Australia. Since its extinction, it has become a symbol of
Tasmania. It is the official symbol of the Tasmanian state. It is even
the symbol of the island's cricket team. This may be one reason why scientists
are trying to bring this tiger back. It is important to Tasmanian identity.
Andrew Pask is a scientist at the University of Melbourne. He is also the
head of a laboratory called tiggr. It is responsible for one attempt at bringing
the Tasmanian tiger back. Pasque spoke to Al Jazeera News about his reason for
trying. I think there is nothing that nears the amazingness of the Tasmanian tiger.
It was an amazing, beautiful marsupial, but humans viciously hunted it to
extinction. We owe it to the tigers to spend the time and money to
return them to their environment. It is a way to repair some of the
wrongs we have done in the past. Pasq's goals are very challenging. No
one has ever brought an animal back from extinction before, though other attempts have
been made, Pask's goal is to try a different method. His project will
start with DNA taken from the remains of Tasmanian tigers. DNA is a special
chemical found in most living things. Each individual animal has its own special DNA,
but each kind of animal also has DNA that it shares with other animals
that are the same kind. This is called the animal's genome. Using the
Tasmanian tiger DNA, Pask hopes to find what its genome looked like. He
also hopes to do the same for another animal called the fat tailed Dunnart.
The fat tailed Dunnart is a mouse like marsupial that eats meat like the Tasmanian
tiger did. The Dunnart has DNA that is a lot like the Tasmanian tigers.
By comparing the two, Pask will be able to see where they are
different, and he will try to change the DNA in the cell of a
Dunnart. If he succeeds, the cell will be the same as a Tasmanian
tigers. From there, he will place the cell inside a Dunnart egg and
that egg could grow into a baby Tasmanian tiger. For Pask and others like
him, there are no negative sides to bringing back the Tasmanian tiger, and
his project has gained millions of dollars from investors, but there are still many
difficulties in the way. Other scientists have questions. Some argue that it is
simply not possible. They argue that the dun Arts DNA is far too different
from a Tasmanian tigers to change. Some say that even if the project worked,
it would not create a true Tasmanian tiger. Others believe that the project
is troubling. Other kinds of animals in Tasmania are dying every day, but
less money is going to help these animals than for an already extinct animal.
They argue it makes more sense to help animals that are still alive, such
as the Tasmanian devil. Others are not sure if a new Tasmanian tiger would
be able to live without human help. Carol Freeman is an animal studies researcher
at the University of Tasmania. She points out that the procedure involves animal experimentation
and she is afraid that these experiments will cause animal suffering. She spoke to
Scientific American about her own concerns. The whole conversation is about bringing this animal
back, but concern for the individual animals is not really talked about. Their
suffering is not right for such an unsure result, It would be many years,
if ever, that these Tasmanian tigers could have anything like the life they
may have had in the wild. Even with these difficulties, Pask is positive
his ideas will win out. He is sure that he can and should bring
back the Tasmanian tiger. He even believes it could happen within the next ten
years. He spoke to the cable news network about what he hopes. Our
final goal with this technology is to restore this animal to the wild. They
had a very important part in nature, so our hope is that you would
be seeing them in Tasmania again one day. What do you think about Pask's
project? Do you think it is possible? Do you think it is a
good idea to bring an animal back from extinction. We want to hear your
thoughts. You can leave a comment on our website or email us at Spotlight
English dot com. You can also comment on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash
Spotlight Radio. The writer and producer of this program was Dan Chrisman. The
voices you heard were from the United States. All quotes were adapted for this
program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and read
it on the internet at www dot Spotlight English dot com. This program is
called Hope for the Tasmanian Tiger. You can also get our programs delivered directly
to your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app. We
hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye