PRESENTED BY

THE DOMESDAY BOOK OF DOGS

De-extinction of the Thylacine

Thylacine killed by Clem Penny.

Courtesy of Libraries Tasmania, 1920.

PH30/1/6303

National Library of Australia.

The thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) was first sighted and recorded by European colonists in 1805, the last known specimen died in captivity in 1936. It took just one hundred and thirty-one years to completely wipe out the world’s largest extant marsupial carnivore (about the size of a medium-sized dog). The extermination was conducted on an industrial scale with seemingly wanton cruelty and even as the species was becoming scarce the killing carried on thanks to a government bounty scheme. The thylacine ate only small animals, there is even an account of an individual catching tadpoles (Paddle, 2000), yet Tasmanian’s referred to it simply as ‘the tiger’, ‘the wolf’ or ‘the hyena’ and blamed it for ravaging the sheep population when feral dogs of near plague proportions were the most likely culprits. The last authenticated death of a thylacine in the wild occurred on 6^th May 1930.

Life was tough for the majority of Tasmania’s settlers who were for the most part callous and largely unschooled, maybe they knew no better, but it’s the scientists of the day who deserve all the opprobrium we can muster. They were helpless in the face of the slaughter, and sometimes even indifferent to the plight of the thylacine. Myths of vampirism concocted as an excuse for the carnage were seized upon and, in the early twentieth century, actually entered into scientific construction. Perhaps worse, healthy potential breeding stock were taken from the island and placed in ‘solitary confinement’ in zoos around the world. Any attempts at breeding were at best haphazard and cack-handed and at worst inept or even negligent and suffered, in many cases, from a distinct lack of finance, space or common-sense.

Of later years the remorse and sense of loss are palpable. Since 1936 there have been hundreds of ‘sightings’ both in Tasmania, and mainland Australia where, it’s believed, the species became extinct over 3,000 years ago. Sadly, any photos tend to be blurry, even suspicious. Nowadays there is a growing body of scientists who believe that cloning would be feasible. Professor Mike Archer first proposed cloning thylacines in the 1990s and the technology has come on by leaps and bounds in the intervening years. In 2009 Penn State University successfully sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of two individuals: where once it was thought that the DNA would be too badly degraded researchers have discovered that it is much more viable when extracted from hair or teeth. An alternative to cloning, CRISPR-Cas9, allows easy, cheap DNA editing and this could be a route towards recreating the thylacine, possibly using genetic material from the quoll or numbat as a foundation. This most unique, distinctive and fascinating species (effectively a marsupial dog), pitilessly wiped out by humans, may yet return.