Tasmanian Tiger

In News

• Recently, the Texas-based biotechnology company Colossal announced their plans to use genetic engineering to recreate the Tasmanian Tiger and return it to the Arctic tundra, its original natural habitat. 

About Tasmanian Tiger

• History:
  • The animal went extinct in the 1930s and was native to the island of Tasmania, where it had lived for around 2 million years.
• Other names:
  • Thylacine, A dingo with a pouch” or “a dog with a pouch”.
  • Its DNA also has a lot in common with the kangaroo. 
• Major threats and challenges: 
  • Humans have been blamed for the animal’s extinction, especially after a bounty program was instituted in Tasmania to protect sheep and other animals.
  • The population today would be very susceptible to diseases, and would not be very healthy.
  • Conservationists point out those resources could be better spent conserving species currently alive at a time when more than 1 million species are at risk of going extinct.
• Significance:
  • Rebuild biodiversity: Scientists hope that establishing populations of animals like the Tasmanian tiger and woolly mammoth can help rebuild biodiversity. 
  • Human guilt: It’s hard to ignore that de-extinction projects are driven in part by human guilt for having caused many of these species to die out in the first place. 
  • Technology: One of the benefits of de-extinction is that technologies for bringing back animals that died out are also being used in conservation projects to boost the numbers of critically endangered animals. 
• Other targeted species:
  • Target species include the Aurochs, the ox-like animal depicted in the Lascaux cave paintings. 

How would the animals be created?

• The scientists will work with stem cells taken from the closest related living species, the fat-tailed dunnart, which they plan to convert to those of a Tasmanian tiger by using gene-editing technologies. 
  • Colossal plans to essentially create a hybrid animal with many of the characteristics of a Tasmanian tiger.
• If the conversion works, the stem cells can then be made into an embryo, which can either be grown in a lab or transferred to a surrogate dunnart mother. 

Source: IE