Back from the dead
The last known Tasmanian Tiger - or thylacine - died in a private zoo in Hobart in 1936. In 1986, the carnivorous marsupial was officially listed extinct. In 1998, I went to Tasmania to research my novel, The Hunter, about one man's search for the last remaining thylacine - and found them everywhere.
Tasmania is an island of 68,000 square kilometres to the south of the continent of Australia. It has two major towns, Hobart and Launceston, the latter having adopted the moniker of Tiger Town. On the island there are bronze statues of the animal outside public institutions; the bus company is called Tiger Line; a football team is known as the Tigers. The popular and locally brewed beer, Cascade, features one last Tassie Tiger poking his (or her) head out of the wilderness. The outdoor markets are overrun with thylacine T-shirts, keyrings, cups and plates. The Tasmanian coat of arms is borne by two thylacines, and the Tasmanian tourist commission sports the head of the animal as its corporate logo.
Given that the thylacine's extinction was due in no small part to human malfeasance - the government offered a bounty for every dead animal, its habitat was diminished through encroaching human development, humans introduced dogs which competed with the thylacines for resources - it is surprising that the image of the Tasmanian Tiger should have become so iconic. Why? I don't think Tasmanians are celebrating its demise, effectively brandishing the head of an enemy on a stick: that would be too gruesome. Instead I think the fascination with the thylacine is a kind of romanticism, a hope that somehow, somewhere "out there in the wilderness" one last animal has survived. As Mulder from X-Files would say: we want to believe.
We have been wanting to believe for a long time. Extensive searches have been carried out. Helicopters have been called in; infrared beams have been set across animal pads; flash cameras have been set up in remote areas; trackers have been sent out; wallaby carcasses have been dragged along behind four-wheel drives so that a scent will lure out the thylacine; illegal traps and snares have been carefully hidden with twigs and grass. Once the World Wildlife Fund ran a project; once Ted Turner offered a reward for evidence of its existence. As late as 1982 a national parks and wildlife service ranger reported a sighting, prompting an extensive government-funded search which proved futile. Untold hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on the quest.
The latest headhunter is the Australian Museum. In 1999, a team of scientists led by Dr Don Colgan announced - spectacularly - an Aust$80m (£30m) project to clone the thylacine using DNA extracted from a female pup that had been preserved in ethanol. At that time Colgan gave the project an 8-10% chance of success. On Tuesday the museum director, Dr Mike Archer, blew his horn, announcing a breakthrough in the team's efforts. "What was once nothing more than an impossible dream has just taken another giant step closer to becoming a biological reality," he said. DNA of some of the female pup's genes had been replicated using a process called polymerase chain reaction.
So, now it seems the icon of the Tasmanian Tiger and the myth of a last survivor are to be outdone. Archer has said that Australians have a moral obligation to try to clone the tiger. The ultimate aim of the project is to clone a viable reproducing population of thylacines.
All well and good. But I hope that this won't been seen as a quick fix, as a magic way of assuaging guilt and righting wrongs (if, in fact, extinction is always a wrong: another question). One sure thing is that the ecological goal of maintaining and encouraging biodiversity would be better served by more funds and attention going towards saving animals currently in danger of becoming extinct and, in a broader sense, to preserving the environments in which all animals live.
There exists black and white footage of the last Tasmanian Tiger in the private zoo, shot at a time when people knew the days of the species were numbered. The images flicker and jitter. The thylacine is in a cage, pacing up and down, alone; he lays listlessly on the concrete. At one point he comes towards the wire fence and opens his jaw, an amazing jaw that much like a snake's jaw could dislocate and gape open at 120 degrees, so as to crush the neck of prey. If it weren't for the wire, the thylacine might have have swallowed the camera.
Archer says he hopes they will able to clone the Tasmanian Tiger within 10 years. Another spectacular announcement. I smell a circus.