Slashdot Mirror
Coming Back Soon... The Tasmanian Tiger?
adoll writes: "Melbourne's The Age is reporting that DNA has been extracted from a 110 year old Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) bone. Scientists are now wondering if genes can be implanted into eggs of an existing species and born to surrogate mothers (numbat and Tasmanian devil are mentioned as possible hosts). The last tiger died in Hobart, Tasmania on September 9, 1936. It was believed the tigers were hunted to extinction (CD: Thems was good eatin) on Tasmania, but unconfirmed sighting have persisted to this day".
Lets hope if they do decide to bring them back, they decide also to make it illegal to hunt. Otherwise you mine as well just be making them to eat. And that would not be bringing back a species that was killed by us. That would just be bringing back the Tasmanian buffet.
Also what happened to Natural Selection? Even if they are a great species, lets not try to recreate Jurassic Park by bringing back things that are dead. I say leave nature alone and use that money towards saving us from falling into the dead species category.
Gizmo
The founder effect, which is the sharp reduction in the genetic variety of a population when it arises from a very small group of individuals (Iceland is an excellent example), has a great potential to be a problem here. The cheetah, for example, went through a bottleneck at some point in the past (no one knows why). Individual cheetahs are so genetically similar that organs (such as skin) can be transplanted between individuals with little or no rejection.
Unless samples from multiple thylacines can be retrieved and successfully used to clone infants, these animals will always be sucsceptible to being wiped out by a plague (since they all have the same genotype.)
And that's to say nothing of the issues with captive-raised animals that have none of the instincts that their wild counterparts would. For example, falcons that have imprinted on humans (and think they're human as a result) cannot be released into the wild -- it would be disastrous. They would never fear humans and would be unable to hunt to feed themselves.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Should they really do this ?
The tasmanian tiger was not fit enough to survive the treat of another more dangerous species.
This species was the infamous Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
It is the usual ecologist point of view that men is an evil intruder in the eco system and should stay apart of it whereever possible.
But this is utter nonsense.
We are a part of nature. And, yes, we are predators that means that we KILL species. And species which aren't fit enough to avoid this treat will be annihilated.
But this IS nature. This is not "artificial" or even "bad".
Some people will no rant "Behold we'll destroy the whole world, the wikked evil ones we are !!!"
But this is nonsense, too. It's not so easy to destroy the nature. There were worse catastrophes in the history of the world which didn't. These eco-freaks are overrating human power exactly the same way as these tech-gonzo dreaming of terraforming liveless planets etc. do.
I think this species should be kept dead.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
- Tasmania has a long history of electing Greens so in 1998 our "major parties" put aside their pretentions of difference and attempted to send the Greens extinct by reducing the number of state poiticians.
- More than fifty years before the last thylacine died in captivity, the last full blood Tasmanian aborigine died, a race that had been isolated from the rest of humanity for more than ten thousand years.
- Thirty years ago, the Tasmanian environmental movement was galvanised by the ultimately unsuccessful campaign to stop the then all-powerful Hydro Electic Commission from building a dam which would drown the remote and ultimately iconic original Lake Pedder. Proposals to drain the dam and restore the original lake persist.
- A decade later, a similar campaign against the proposed Gordon below Franklin dam was successful and South West Tasmania gained World Heritage recognition, including the aboriginal art in Fraser Cave named for our then Prime Minister in an attempt to enhance his environmental awareness.
- In the last few months it looks as though another predator, the fox, might be trying to get established in Tasmania. I'm sure I heard a report of some more recent evidence that they may indeed have a breeding population which defies thinking about given today's level of environmental awareness.
- The Tasmanian government recently retreated from its undertaking to support the outcome of the Tasmania Together process with respect to the unpopular logging of old growth forests to support huge (by Tasmanian standards earnings from wood chip export.
- On the other side of Bass Strait, there is growing environmental opposition to the Basslink Project to connect the Tasmanian electrical grid to the Australian mainland grid.
Now I just have to wonder whether the foxes or the politicians will utilise cloning first? My own fondest memory of Tassie was diving with dolphins at Flinders Island, a day I would like to clone.-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
That isn't nearly enough.
To maintain genetic diversity, you need probably 1000+ members of a species. You could get by with a few hundred, but it would be hard.
The problem is that each animal carries multiple recessive genes that are lethal (as do most humans, about 8 per person). Once you get serious inbreeding a few generations down the track, you get seriously high numbers of these recessives coming back to bite you.
Three won't work. Not in the long run, unless you keep on cloning them.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
It should be sobering to realize that in the time span that this species might be "brought back", many thousands species will likely be going extinct. We could probably save a few of them with the money and media attention expended on this project. Of course, we could save a few of them with the money and attention expended on Harry Potter or Britney Spears.
That's not to say that this project isn't worthwhile. It is scientifically interesting, and it's a challenge. But if we want to do anything about extinctions, we have to start elsewhere: with ecology and conservation. In fact, bringing back a species without bringing back their habitat is only half the job anyway.
I think we should bring back as many of these extinct animals as possible, if only to learn a little more about them. If we can't make a breeding pair, we'll at least have a much better idea of what they were like originally. Quality photos would be almost as priceless as the animals. I have no desire to see a bunch of dinasaurs running around eating cows and people, but more recent species would be very interesting.
All of this crap about "god" is really sad. Letting religion anywhere near science goes against the restraining order. Doesn't anyone watch the Simpsons anymore?
As long as we're talking about a captive breeding program, I dont see the problem. Just eliminate the offspring that have reinforced bad traits and breed the ones that don't.
Inbreeding is really only a problem when you either can't really do culling (like with people) or breeding isn't controlled and the damaged offspring can continue to breed.
A general lack of diversity can be a problem, but I don't think it's insurmountable.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Check this sitec tr um1.html at the Sydney Saturday Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0111/24/spectrum/spe
for a better news article, and this website
http://www.austmus.gov.au/
at the Australian Museum (where the Thylacine research is taking place) for links on the project. Another factoid: even though the Tasmanians exterminated the Thylacine, its image graces their regional beer, Cascade. Go figure.