Agencies-Gaza post
Project to “revive” extinct tiger costs multi-million dollar
Researchers in Australia and the United States began working on a multi-million dollar project to “revive” a tiger that became extinct many decades ago.
The last Tasmanian tiger died in the 1930s. The team behind the project says the animal can be brought back using stem cells and gene-editing technology.
They hope to revive the first Tasmanian tiger within 10 years.
Other experts doubt that bringing the animals back from extinction is just science fiction.
The scientists plan to take stem cells from a living animal with similar DNA, and then use gene-editing technology to “recreate” extinct species, or create an animal very close to them.
Professor Andrew Pask, who is leading the research and is from the University of Melbourne, said: “I now believe that in 10 years we will be able to have the first surviving baby Tasmanian tiger since … its extinction a century ago.”
The Tasmanian tiger population declined when humans arrived in Australia tens of thousands of years ago, and again when the dingo, a type of wild dog, appeared.
After that, these tigers became only roaming on the island of Tasmania and were eventually hunted to extinction.
The last Tasmanian tiger died at the Hobart Zoo in 1936.
If scientists succeed in resurrecting the animal, it will be the first time in history that an animal has been “returned from extinction”, but many experts are skeptical about the outcome of these efforts.
“De-extinction is a science fiction,” Associate Professor Jeremy Austin, from the Australian Center for Ancient DNA, told the Sydney Morning Herald, adding that the project was “more about media interest in scientists than about actually doing serious science.”
The idea of bringing back the Tasmanian tiger has been around for more than 20 years. In 1999, the Australian Museum began pursuing an animal cloning project, and various attempts have been made at intervals since then to extract or reconstruct viable DNA from samples.
The latest project is a partnership between scientists at the University of Melbourne and Texas-based Colossal.
The US company made headlines last year with its plans to use a similar gene-editing technique to bring the woolly mammoth back to life, a feat that has yet to be achieved.
