TIMECODE

DIALOGUE

10:00:00

[intro music and images]

10:00:05

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Australia’s Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger, is one of the most exotic and mysterious creatures to have roamed the planet.

10:00:12

ANDREW PASK:  It’s an incredibly amazing, beautiful marsupial that was brutally hunted by humans to extinction.

10:00:18

MARY ANN JOLLEY: But now, a world first.

10:00:20

ANDREW PASK:  This will be the, the foundation of bringing the Thylacine back.

10:00:24

MARY ANN JOLLEY: A team of Australian scientists in collaboration with a US genetic engineering company are promising to resurrect it.

10:00:31

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  So possibly in the next 5 years?

10:00:34

BEN LAMM:  I think that’s a really good assessment.

10:00:36

MARY ANN JOLLEY: Their ultimate goal?  To return it to its native environment.

10:00:40

ANDREW PASK:  It was the only marsupial Apex predator.  Bringing that animal back would have incredible benefits for the ecosystem.

10:00:47

MARY ANN JOLLEY: But the $15m project is already sparking fierce debate.

10:00:52

KRIS HELGEN:  So many species in Australia are threatened with extinction.  To spend a lot of money doing something that is unfeasible is a missed opportunity.

10:01:01

NICK MOONEY:  If they succeed it will be a freak show. The animals will be so valuable, there’s no way you can let them free range.

10:01:08

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  101 East travels to what was once Thylacine heartland and talks to the scientists and their critics about the ambitious project to bring it back to life.

GFX:

101 EAST

BRINGING BACK THE TASMANIAN TIGER

BY MARY ANN JOLLEY, DAVID BOYLE & MARK DOBBIN

10:01:32

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Australia’s spectacular southern isle was once home to the iconic Thylacine.  Having disappeared from Papua New Guinea and the mainland around 2000 years ago, its fate in Tasmania was sealed by 19^th century British colonists.  The island’s top predator, shot to extinction.

10:01:53

NICK MOONEY:  Yeah, they brought this European predator hysteria.  Everything with big teeth or claws was non grata.  A very grim story.

10:02:02

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Biologist, conservationist and arguably Tasmania’s leading Thylacine expert, Nick Mooney, is blunt about his state’s shameful past.

10:02:11

NICK MOONEY:  As the colony settled in and sheep arrived, a conflict started immediately. At one stage there was a claim that more sheep were killed every year than were actually sheep in Tasmania. It was just classic tabloid rubbish.  So, the bounty was installed and that really was the death knell of the Thylacine.

GFX:

£1 for every full-grown

Native Tiger destroyed

10:02:37

MARY ANNE JOLLEY:  The Thylacine population was wiped out within little more than a century after British colonists arrived.  The last one is believed to have died here at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart in 1936.  It’s said to have died of neglect and exposure.  Tragically, just a couple of months after its death, the Thylacine was declared a protected species.  This famous footage of what’s considered the second last surviving Thylacine was taken soon after it was captured and brought to the zoo. The haunting images have made the animal an icon of human induced extinction, but it’s spirit lives on.

10:03:21

GFX:

Australian

MOVIE

MAGAZINE

10:03:24

NEWSREADER:  Reports in recent weeks have revived hopes that a few of them still survive out there somewhere in the remote mountain and forest areas.

10:03:33

NICK MOONEY:  There’s been thousands of sighting reports.  I’ve met many people who firmly believe they’ve seen Thylacines. They’re absolutely convincing, but whether they did or not is a completely different issue.

10:03:46

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Almost 50 years after the last one was thought to have died, Mooney led a year long government search for the Thylacine from this site.  A fellow wildlife officer had reported seeing one here.

10:03:58

NICK MOONEY:  He was sleeping in his Landcruiser, woke up, flicked his spotlight round and bingo.  He said there’s this Thylacine standing only three or four metres away from the vehicle.  So, he had a chance to have a really good look at it for several minutes he thought.  When the animal disappeared, he had a look for footprints but it was raining so nothing.

10:04:19

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Mooney’s search also found nothing.

10:04:22

NICK MOONEY:  It was someone very experienced and so you’ve got no chance of a mistake, yeah.  And so, he was either right or he was lying. He hasn’t budged from his story one scrap since.

10:04:32

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Is it possible that they lived longer than people…

10:04:37

NICK MOONEY:  Oh absolutely.  I think it’s the most extraordinary bit of human arrogance to think we caught or killed the last one.

10:04:45

NEWSREADER:  Sadly, the Tasmanian tiger has gone.  This is the only film in existence of the rare creature that couldn’t keep pace with man.

10:04:57

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Known colloquially as the Tasmanian Tiger or Tassie Tiger for short, the Thylacine is indelibly etched in Tasmania’s identity – adorning number plates and attracting tourists.  Small towns trading on it.

10:05:12

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  In 1984 Mole Creek was the site of the last official search for the Thylacine, but I’m on my way to meet some locals who say they’ve seen it since then and believe it’s still out there.

10:05:29

MARY ANNE JOLLEY: With a head of a dog, pouch of a kangaroo and stripes of a tiger, the magic of the mysterious marsupial is not lost on local publican, Doug Westbrook, who took over the hotel 14 years ago.

10:05:42

DOUG WESTBROOK: The second weekend we was here we had a group of German backpackers come through and they were really keen on the thylacine and I thought, wow they come all the way from Germany to Mole Creek.  And I thought, there’s something in this. 

SUBTITLES:

The second weekend we was here…

we had a group of German backpackers come through…

and they were really keen on the thylacine.

And I thought, wow…

they come all the way from Germany to Mole Creek. 

And I thought, there’s something in this. 

10:06:00

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  And like many of his patrons, he says…

10:06:03

DAVID WESTBROOK: I believe I saw one, yeah.  My wife will say she definitely saw it.

SUBTITLES:

I believe I saw one, yeah. 

My wife will say she definitely saw it. 

10:06:09

JOE: I’ve had several encounters.

SUBTITLES:

I’ve had several…

encounters.

10:06:12

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  For old timers like Joe and Lexi, memories of the tiger haven’t faded.

10:06:17

LEXI:  Well, my father used to snare back in the mountains and he used to often talk about the Tasmanian tigers.

SUBTITLES:

Well, my father used to snare back in the mountains…

and he used to often talk about the Tasmanian tigers.

10:06:25

JOE: I used to torment my mother.  I’d say, “Mum, there’s a Tasmanian tiger on the road”.  “Oh yes.  Another one”.  Well, this day I said, “There’s a Tasmanian tiger on the road”.  The closer I got, the more I could see that it really was.  Although he was wet, you could still see the black stripes up him.

SUBTITLES:

I used to torment my mother. 

I’d say, “Mum, there’s a Tasmanian tiger on the road”. 

“Oh yes.  Another one”. 

Well, this day I said, “There’s a Tasmanian tiger on the road”. 

The closer I got, the more I could see that it really was. 

Although he was wet, you could still see the black stripes up him.

10:06:46

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  A younger enthusiast says he’s not only seen one…

10:06:49

LEIGH JONES: It just shot out of the bush, straight across in front of us to the other side. 

SUBTITLES:

It just shot out of the bush…

straight across the road in front of us to the other side.

10:06:54

MARY ANN JOLLEY: But has video evidence.

10:06:56

LEIGH JONES: We put the camera where the tiger went in through the day time, and a couple of nights later he come back out. You see it rise up there?

SUBTITLES: 

We put the camera where the tiger went in through the day time…

and a couple of nights later, he came back out.

You see it rise up there?

10:07:05

MARY ANN JOLLEY: Oh, that’s it?

SUBTITLES:

Oh, that’s it?

10:07:07

LEIGH JONES: Yeah.

SUBTITLES:

Yeah.

10:07:08

MARY ANNE JOLLEY: Just there. Not this?

SUBTITLES:

Just there.

Not this?

10:07:09

LEIGH JONES: No, not that. There’s his tail.

SUBTITLES:

No, not that. 

There’s his tail.

10:07:12

MARY ANN JOLLEY: But alas it’s hard to see anything.  Unfortunately…

10:07:16

LEIGH JONES: We had the camera too high.

SUBTITLES:

We had the camera too high.

10:07:20

MARY ANNE JOLLEY:  Social media abounds with blurry photographs and videos posted by tiger hunters, claiming to have captured images of the elusive created.  While experts rebuff them, the true believers are not deterred.

10:07:34

LEXI: Yes, I’d say it probably is still around.

SUBTITLES:

Yes, I’d say it probably is still around

10:07:37

JOE: Scientists don’t know everything, and I’m certain that they’re still … all me mates condemn me for it, but I still reckon they’re out there.

SUBTITLES:

Scientists don’t know everything.

And I’m certain that they’re still…

All me mates condemn me for it…

But I still reckon they’re out there.

10:07:52

MARY ANN JOLLEY: The Tassie Tiger has also bewitched Hollywood.

GFX:

THE HUNTER

10:07:58

MARY ANN JOLLEY: And hard headed media barons.  America’s Ted Turner offered a $100,000 dollar reward to anyone who found one.  And Australia’s Kerry Packer upped the ante to more than a million dollars – all to no avail.  But now an American genetic engineering company is vowing to reverse the course of Thylacine history.

GFX:

THE DE-EXTINCTION COMPANY

MAMMOTH STEPPE

10:08:21

COLOSSAL VIDEO:  The vast mammoth steppe of the Pleistocene era.

10:08:25

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  In late 2021, Colossal announced a project to attempt what humans have never done, bring back an extinct animal.

10:08:33

COLOSSAL VIDEO:  Woolly Mammoths now long extinct once roamed these northern landscapes in large herds.

10:08:39

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Raising more than $75 million dollars on the back of a proposal to resurrect the Woolly Mammoth by editing the genome of an Asian elephant to create its giant furry relative.

10:08:50

COLOSSAL VIDEO: Breakthrough genetic engineering technologies have made it possible to read, edit and even write genomes. Colossal…

10:08:58

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  The company’s catchphrase…

10:08:59

GFX:

COLOSSAL

Restoring the past for a better future

10:09:03

MARY ANN JOLLEY: Is now being used to promote the de-extinction of Australia’s Thylacine.  Colossal founder and CEO, Ben Lamm, is streaming in from Dallas, Texas.

10:09:13

BEN LAMM: The Thylacine was actually eradicated 100% by humankind and it served a major purpose in its ecosystem. So, it’s kind of this perfect project where we can you know undo what was done from the past.

10:09:27

FOREST: Huge, huge news coming out of Australia today.

10:09:31

MARY ANN JOLLEY: With the help of social media influencers.

10:09:33

LAURA:  Colossal are planning to de-extinct the Thylacine.

10:09:36

KENDALL LONG: To learn more, go to Colossal.com.

10:09:39

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Colossal secured more than $10 million dollars.  Its investors include a movie megastar, media celebrities, private conservation companies and US intelligence agency, the CIA.

10:09:51

BEN LAMM:  I think that, you know, the Federal Government you know wants to understand what the capabilities are around these technologies. Where do we need to put boundaries around these technologies?  And then how can these technologies really help the world, right?

10:10:05

MARY ANN JOLLEY: To really understand this ambitious project, you need to meet this man, Andrew Pask, a professor in the bioscience department at Australia’s University of Melbourne who’s been studying Thylacine development for 20 years.  He leads a team of scientists collaborating with Colossal.

10:10:22

ANDREW PASK:  I think there is nothing that approaches the, the, the incredibleness of the Tasmanian tiger.  It was the only marsupial apex predator that has lived into modern times.  And so, I got really fascinated in trying to figure out, you now, this is tragically lost this species but quite recently and could we use museum specimens to unlock more about the biology of this incredible animal?  We know that DNA breaks down overtime, so for example there is no DNA left in dinosaur bones.  So, the first thing we’re just trying to figure out, is there DNA in those specimens?

10:10:54

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Melbourne’s Museum was his first stop. It holds one of the world’s best collections of Thylacines.  If it wasn’t for the backroom collections in museums, the Thylacine de-extinction project would have be inconceivable.  On the shelves and in draws here, are precious Thylacine specimens from which Pask and his team have been able to extract DNA.

10:11:20

KEVIN ROWE: They said give us a sample of every Thylacine and we said hold on a minute, why don’t we figure out which parts work the best?  Everyone of the cells in here has DNA.  It’s just a question of how degraded that DNA is.

10:11:31

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Kevin Rowe is the curator of mammals at the museum and is working closely with Pask.

10:11:36

KEVIN ROWE:  So, these are the two that we started with sampling different places. This specimen we sampled in a few ways because we’re working to try to optimise the best sources of DNA on the skin.

10:11:46

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  But it’s this baby Thylacine specimen that has proved the most valuable.

10:11:52

KEVIN ROWE:  Here it is.

10:11:53

ANDREW PASK:  Yep, this is my favourite specimen of all of the ones that we have here.

10:11:57

MARY ANN JOLLEY: More than 110 years old, it was preserved decades before the value of DNA was fully understood.

10:12:03

ANDREW PASK:  It was put into ethanol, which was quite amazingly fortuitous.  What that did is it enabled it to preserve the DNA within that specimen really well and so it’s actually the one that enabled us to sequence the entire genome and will be the foundation of bringing the Thylacine back.

10:12:20

MARY ANN JOLLEY: But that’s just the beginning. How to turn the genome into a living creature is another thing.  In 2008, Pask’s team had a major breakthrough.  In a world first, they succeeded in bringing DNA from an extinct species back to life by inserting a Thylacine fragment into a mouse.

10:12:39

ANDREW PASK: We brought back a gene we thought was really important for skeletal development, for the shape and overall size of the Thylacine.  And we can tag the gene blue.  So everywhere you see blue here, is where you’re seeing that piece of Thylacine DNA, our Tassie tiger DNA, resurrected and actually functioning in that living animal.

10:13:01

MARY ANN JOLLEY: Now they face a herculean challenge, bringing back the whole genome of an extinct Thylacine.  And that’s where this tiny marsupial known as the Fat Tailed Dunnart comes into play.

10:13:13

ANDREW PASK:  It’s amazing to think a little marsupial like this could give birth to a Tasmanian tiger.

10:13:18

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  The Dunnart is the Thylacine’s closest living relative. They intend to edit its genome to create a Thylacine.

10:13:25

ANDREW PASK:  They’re mostly the same.  You know, we’re talking 95% plus similarity between those two genomes, but there’s 5% of difference.  So, what we do is we go in and we edit that 5%.

10:13:37

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Stem cells will be sourced from the Dunnart, then edited by Colossal to match the genome of the Thylacine.

10:13:38

GFX:

DUNNART

THYLACINE

10:13:44

MARY ANN JOLLEY: The nucleus of a Dunnart egg will be replaced with the nucleus of the engineered stem cell. The resulting embryo will then be implanted into its host.

10:13:48

GFX:

NEW DNA INTO CELL

EMBRYO IMPLANTED

10:13:56

ANDREW PASK:  One of the great things about marsupials is they all give birth to tiny, tiny babies. They’re about the size of a grain of rice. What that means for us is that even that little mouse sized, fat tailed Dunnart, can give birth to a baby Tasmanian tiger, even though it’s going to massively outgrow the mum after birth.

10:14:15

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  These CT scans of rare baby Thylacine specimens will then become critical.

10:14:20

ANDREW PASK:  We can actually map out their developmental trajectory to make sure that that final animal we get is going to be developing correctly along those pathways.

10:14:29

MARY ANN JOLLEY: And if it’s not?

10:14:30

ANDREW PASK: Then we would know that we’re not recreating the Thylacine so we can stop those experiments, go back, have a look at what other bit we can change and then create the next one and have a look at how that one’s developing.

10:14:40

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  So really, until it’s born, you won’t know what you’re going to get?

10:14:43

ANDREW PASK:  The whole goal with this project is to edit that genome to be 99.9% Thylacine, but we don’t how big a difference that 0.1% might make, but it will definitely be a Thylacine.

10:14:56

MARY ANN JOLLEY: And definitely have stripes?

10:14:58

ANDREW PASK:  I hope so.  I feel like we’ve failed if it’s not stripey.

10:15:03

MARY ANN JOLLEY: According to Pask, it will be at least 10 years before a genetically engineering Thylacine cell is produced.  But Colossal’s CEO is much less circumspect.

10:15:13

BEN LAMM: We’ve put a very big ambitious goal out there for the mammoth of you know 5 to 6 years and elephants have a 22-month gestation.  Given that our, our model organism, the fat tailed Dunnart has a 14-day gestation which is obviously significantly shorter. I think that it’s safe to assume that we will hopefully see one before we see a mammoth – that kind of gives you some idea of time.

10:15:35

MARY ANN JOLLEY: So possibly in the next five years?

10:15:37

BEN LAMM: I think that’s a really good assessment.

10:15:41

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  But at Sydney’s Australian Museum, the assessment of the Thylacine de-extinction project is far from good.

10:15:47

KRIS HELGEN: The project is fanciful.  I guarantee you that in 10 year’s from now that animal will not be running around Tasmania.  This is not going to happen.

10:15:57

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Kris Helgen is the museum’s chief scientist. He finds the use of the Dunnart farcical.

10:16:03

KRIS HELGEN:  Does that look anything like a Thylacine to you?

10:16:05

MARY ANN JOLLEY: And not just because of the way it looks.

10:16:08

KRIS HELGEN: It’s not closely related to the Thylacine.  It’s about as close as you can get amongst modern species, but the Thylacine is so different from all other marsupials that it’s in its own family. The question is, could you ever modify the DNA of this animal to get it anything close to becoming this animal?  I say absolutely not. It would be something a bit like a dog to a cat, like a horse to a rhino.  Could you possibly turn an elephant into a mammoth?  Maybe it’s just possible because they’re so closely related, and we know a lot about the biology of elephants so we have something to go on. With Thylacines, we’re missing all of that ground information.

10:16:52

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  And Helgen contends that even if something is produced, it won’t be a Thylacine. 

10:16:57

KRIS HELGEN: The outcome will be some kind of genetically modified Dunnart. That’s not a Thylacine.

10:17:03

MARY ANN JOLLEY: It’s a pronouncement that doesn’t appear to worry Colossal’s CEO.

10:17:07

BEN LAMM: We like to think of it as a proxy species, right?  We’re not cloning these animals. So, what percentage of it is a Thylacine versus non-Thylacine, is still to be determined.  Like once we get our first couple of Thylacines, we’ll let the world judge and say you know, can my grandmother look at it and say, wow, it’s a Thylacine.  But how close genetically do we really need, right? And so ultimately, we want to ensure that we are developing an animal that can serve as a proxy to that degraded ecosystem.

10:17:34

MARY ANN JOLLEY: Australia’s degraded eco systems are in crisis.  Catastrophic bushfires, droughts and massive habitat destruction have had a devastating impact.  More species of mammals have been lost than on any other continent and the country has one of the highest rates of species decline in the world.

10:17:53

ANDREW PASK: They Thylacine was absolutely critical in balancing the ecosystem from, from which it came and so a great example of what happens when you lose that predator, is with the Tasmanian devils.

10:18:05

MARY ANN JOLLEY: Another native Australian marsupial, the Tasmanian devil, has long been a signature species for animals on the brink of extinction. A contagious and deadly facial tumour wiping out some 80% of the population.

10:18:19

ANDREW PASK:  Now if the Tasmanian tiger was still around, it eats those sick and injured animals and it removes them from the population before they have a chance to spread that disease.  So, we think that bringing that animal back to Tasmania would have incredible benefits, not just for the Tasmanian devil population, but for all sorts of unforeseen parts of that ecosystem.

10:18:41

MARY ANN JOLLEY: It’s a vision that realistically won’t be tested here in Tasmania for decades, only after Thylacine proxies are studied thoroughly and deemed safe to release into the wild. About 5,000 Thylacines once roamed across Tasmania, but conservationists say that bring them back is unlikely to restore the environmental imbalance left in the wake of their demise.

10:19:06

NICK MOONEY:  I think it’s a false premise and I think it’s, I’ll be generous and say I think it’s naïve.

10:19:12

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Nick Mooney has spent his life in the Tasmanian wilderness, working for the government’s parks and wildlife Service.

10:19:18

NICK MOONEY: By the time this has happened, we’ll have so many more extinctions and there’ll be fractions of habitat left and the very best of it that the Thylacine would have preferred to live in will be well and truly under lock and key, fenced and pastured and all the rest of it.  Some of it cemented.

10:19:38

MARY ANN JOLLEY: And as for benefits for the devil he’s worked to preserve…

10:19:41

NICK MOONEY:  They become very rare.  What do you do?  Put Thylacines back in there and suppress them further?  And in fact, the disease process is well underway and there’s no way you can roll it back. It’s got its own momentum if you like and there’s just so many moving parts in this machine now that people are influencing, like roadkill and development of all sorts, pesticides and then climate change.

10:20:05

MARY ANN JOLLEY: The north west of the island was once prime Thylacine habitat, but today one of the last populations of Tasmanian devils not affected by the lethal facial tumour, struggles to survive here.  Local wildlife volunteer, Alice Carson, shares photographs of devil roadkill.

10:20:23

ALICE CARSON: You see this is a big guy.

10:20:24

NICK MOONEY:  Big old devil in its prime.

10:20:25

ALICE CARSON:  Yep.

10:20:27

NICK MOONEY:  Big scarred face.

10:20:28

ALICE CARSON:  Look at that poor darling.

10:20:29

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Carson says she’s removed more than 160 carcasses of endangered devils from this stretch of road in the past 18 months.

10:20:37

ALICE CARSON: We haven’t got room for the animals we’ve got now. We’re not prepared to share what we’ve got now.  So, I, I, it’s not because I don’t want Thylacines back in the wild, I’d love to see that, but I’d love to see what we’ve got here protected as well.

10:20:50

NICK MOONEY:  It makes me think a very expensive lab animal might be just splattered on the road here shortly after you release it.  To have a Thylacine rebalance the ecology, it actually has to be there in a lot of numbers throughout the landscape, free ranging.  If they succeed, it will be a freak show because the animals will be so valuable, there’s no way you can let them free range because anything can happen to them and people won’t put up with them. You’ll, you’ll still have an animal that people will be worried about their sheep.

10:21:29

NICK MOONEY: We’re here on the corner of the old Van Diemen’s land grant. They put a lot of sheep on here and they actually employed a Thylacine hunter to try and track down the Thylacines and kill them.

10:21:41

MARY ANN JOLLEY: The extermination of Thylacines hangs heavily in the air. For Mooney it’s a sobering reminder of what should never be allowed to happen again.

10:21:50

NICK MOONEY: I think we should be preventing extinctions not trying to resurrect animals or in fact invent animals. If we focus on this effort to reconstruct an animal, we’re going to teach people that extinction isn’t forever and we can fix everything later so let’s not worry.

10:22:08

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Let the devil’s die.

10:22:10

NICK MOONEY: Let them die. This project I think is a very serious distraction for genuine nature conservation.

10:22:17

MARY ANN JOLLEY: And it’s the diversion of investors’ funds that concerns the Australian Museum’s chief scientist.

10:22:22

KRIS HELGEN: To spend a lot of money doing something that I think is not just infeasible but impossible is a missed opportunity, I think. If you really wanted to show that de-extinction was possible, you would probably be starting with animals that were much less charismatic.  So, Australia’s extinct native rodents, or maybe extinct native bandicoots. These are some animals that have very close living relatives and you might have an actual shot at achieving something.  But they wouldn’t be the charismatic ones that would bring in those tens of millions of dollars of investment.

10:22:57

BEN LAMM: I think that any time you’re pushing the bounds of technology and doing something bold, you know you’re going to have critics, right?  You know, what I will tell you is that the world that we live in needs bold solutions.  We need genetic rescue tools in order for us to save critically endangered species that exist on, on the planet.

10:23:18

MARY ANN JOLLEY: 250 kms west of Melbourne, Grampians National Park is home to endangered species.  Museum Victoria’s Kevin Rowe and his team are working to ensure they’ll reap the benefits from advances in genetic technology. 

10:23:33

KEVIN ROWE: We’ve got a smoky mouse.

10:23:35

HELPER: A smoky mouse?

10:23:37

KEVIN ROWE:  It’s a smoky mouse in here, yeah.  Right in the rocks.

10:23:38

HELPER:  A smoky mouse? Oh, that’s awesome.  The first one for the day.

10:23:41

MARY ANN JOLLEY: They’re collecting tissue from animals like the threatened smoky mouse.

10:23:46

KEVIN ROWE: So, we’re hoping this guy is now breeding, but in cases he doesn’t, we’ve got his genetic diversity preserved as cells for the next 100 to 200 years.

10:23:56

MARY ANN JOLLEY: Tissue samples containing living DNA are preserved in the museum’s biobank at a temperature of less than minus 180 degrees Celsius. Using the preserved DNA, the Thylacine project is promising solutions for the more than 30 Australian marsupials under threat of extinction.

10:24:16

ANDREW PASK: The reason I love this project is because regardless of the endpoint, the conservation technologies that we develop, are going to be transformative for marsupials.  We’ll have mechanisms of turning biobank’s marsupial tissue back into marsupials that we can repopulate areas after a bushfire.  We want to bolster their immune system so they can survive diseases better, maybe survive climate change better, maybe able to deal with predators in the environment better.  They are things that we absolutely will unequivocally be able to achieve through this project, as well as bringing the Thylacine back.

10:24:51

MARY ANN JOLLEY:  Spin off technologies may prove to be the project’s greatest achievement, but back in Mole Creek, at least one Thylacine lover is barracking for its resurrection.

10:25:01

LEXI: Whether it be one out of the wild or whether it’s out of a laboratory, that’d be good to see one, wouldn’t it?  And then we’d all know what they were talking about.

SUBTITLES:

Whether it be one out of the wild

or whether it’s out of a laboratory…

that’d be good, to see one, wouldn’t it?

And then we’d all know

what they were talking about

10:25:15

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10:25:16

GFX:

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10:25:19

[end]