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Cenozoic Park: Cloning the Tasmanian Tiger

Posted by michael on from the velociraptor-up-next dept.

Mirk writes "The Australian Museum reports a breakthrough in their plans to clone the Tasmanian Tiger. The ``tiger'', actually a carnivorous marsupial, became extinct in 1936, when the last known specimen died in captivity. Er, did I say ``extinct''? Now it looks like what everyone thought was an extinction may be ``a 70-year hiccup'', to quote the press release. The museum's Evolutionary Biology Unit have successfully replicated individual Tasmanian Tiger genes using a process known as PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction)."

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  1. Re:Couple More Species by InfinityEdge · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I recall an historical account of the last great auk being killed so that it could be stuffed and placed in the British museum.

    Reminds me of a story from my home state of California. Cali's state flag has a huge Grizzly Bear dominating the center. Grizzly Bears are now extinct in California. Guess how the last known Grizzly in Cali died. It was swimming across a river and a bunch of people paddled out in a boat and clubbed it to death while it was defenseless in the middle of the river.

    Incidents like this make me question my normal environmenalist instinct. Being an environmentalist means striving to keep the ball of dirt we're on clean enough to happily support humanity. Maybe I should just say fuck it and become a republican so that we can make this planet hostile to human existance ASAP. Thank god I don't have kids yet, that would really make me want to save the species...