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Hope for the Tasmanian Tiger (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

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  Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Roger Bassi and I'm Megan Nolette. Spotlight uses
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  a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
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  matter where in the world they live. It is nineteen thirty six. An
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  animal is walking behind bars in a zoo on the island of Tasmania. This
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  animal is a strange one. It looks a little like a dog, but
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  it has dark stripes running down its back like a tiger, and it can
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  open its mouth very wide, almost eighty degrees. Its tail is long and
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  thin, with very little hair. The animal smells the floor behind the bars,
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  then it looks out at the people watching it. It is called a
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  thylosine. It is also known as a Tasmanian tiger. It has been named
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  Benjamin, and it is the last of its kind. In several weeks,
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  Benjamin will die. With his death, the Tasmanian tiger will become extinct.
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  It will no longer exist anywhere on the earth. This would be the end
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  of most animals. Once an animal goes extinct, there's usually no hope of
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  bringing it back. But the Tasmanian tiger may be different, and today scientists
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  are working on a technology that once seemed impossible. They are hoping to bring
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  the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction. Today's Spotlight Advanced is on the de extinction
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  of the Tasmanian tiger. The Tasmanian tiger is very important to the Australian island
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  of Tasmania. It once lived all over the Australian continent, but around three
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  thousand years ago the tigers began to die out there. By the eighteen hundreds,
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  they were gone from most of Australia. Europeans began settling in Tasmania in
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  eighteen twenty five. By that time there were only five thousand Tasmanian tigers left.
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  This animal was also special. It was a marsupial. Marsupials give birth
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  to their young very early in life. Female marsupials have special bags of skin
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  or pouches as part of their bodies. When a tiny marsupial is born,
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  it lives in this pouch. The tiny baby is able to drink milk inside
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  its mother's pouch and continue to grow. The baby can leave and return to
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  its mother's pouch for months. The Tasmanian tiger was the largest meat eating Marsupial.
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  Sadly, Europeans in Australia did not understand how special the Tasmanian tiger was
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  when they arrived in Tasmania. They thought the Tasmanian tiger might be dangerous.
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  They blamed it for killing their farm animals. They thought it might even hurt
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  children, so they began hunting it. The government even paid money for Tasmanian
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  tiger's skins. When people understood that they had made a mistake, it was
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  too late. By nineteen thirty six, there was only one Tasmanian tiger left.
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  Humans had hunted the Tasmanian tiger to extinction, but the Tasmanian tiger's memory
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  is still very strong in Australia. Since its extinction, it has become a
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  symbol of Tasmania. It is the official symbol of the Tasmanian state. It
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  is even the symbol of the island's cricket team. This may be one reason
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  why scientists are trying to bring this tiger back. It is important to Tasmanian
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  identity. Andrew pask Is, a scientist at the University of Melbourne. Is
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  also the head of a laboratory called tiggr It is responsible for one attempt at
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  bringing the Tasmanian tiger back. Pask spoke to Al Jazeera News about his reason
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  for trying. I think there is nothing that nears the amazingness of the Tasmanian
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  tiger. It was an amazing, beautiful marsupial, but humans viciously hunted it
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  to extinction. We owe it to the tigers to spend the time and money
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  to return them to their environment. It is a way to repair some of
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  the wrong we have done in the past. Pask's goals are very challenging.
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  No one has ever brought an animal back from extinction before, though other attempts
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  have been made. Pask's goal is to try a different method. His project
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  will start with DNA taken from the remains of Tasmanian tigers. DNA is a
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  special chemical found in most living things. Each individual animal has its own special
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  DNA, but each kind of animal also has DNA that it shares with other
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  animals that are the same kind. This is called the animal's genome. Using
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  the Tasmanian tiger DNA, Pask hopes to find what its genome looked like.
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  He also hopes to do the same for another animal called the fat tailed Dunnart.
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  The fat tailed Dunnart is a mouse like marsupial that eats meat like the
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  Tasmanian tiger did. The Dunnart has DNA that is a lot like the Tasmanian
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  tigers. By comparing the two, Pask will be able to see where they're
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  different, and he will try to change the DNA in the cell of a
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  Dunnart. If he succeeds, the cell will be the same as a Tasmanian
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  tigers. From there, he will place the cell inside a Dunnert egg and
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  that egg could grow into a baby Tasmanian tiger. For Pask and others like
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  him, there are no negative signs to bringing back the Tasmanian tiger, and
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  his project has gained millions of dollars from investors, but there are still many
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  difficulties in the way. Other scientists have questions. Some argue that it is
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  simply not possible. They argue that the Dunnart's DNA is far too different from
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  a Tasmanian tigers to change. Some say that even if the project worked,
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  it would not create a true Tasmanian tiger. Others believe that the project is
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  troubling. Other kinds of animals in Tasmania are dying every day, but less
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  money is going to help these animals than for an already extinct animal. They
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  argue it makes more sense to help animals that are still alive, such as
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  the Tasmanian devil. Others are not sure if a new Tasmanian tiger would be
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  able to live without human help. Carol Freeman is an animal studies researcher at
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  the University of Tasmania. She points out that the procedure involves animal experimentation,
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  and she is afraid that these experiments will cause animal suffering. She spoke to
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  Scientific American about her own concerns. The whole conversation is about bringing this animal
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  back. What's concern for the individual animals is not really talked about. Their
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  suffering is not right for such an unsure result, it would be many years,
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  if ever, that these Tasmanian tigers could have anything like the life they
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  may have had in the wild. Even with these difficulties, Pask is positive
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  his ideas will win out. He is sure that he can and should bring
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  back the Tasmanian tiger. He even believes it could happen within the next ten
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  years. He spoke to the Cable news network about what he hopes. Our
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  final goal with this technology is to restore this animal to the wild. They
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  had a very important part in nature, so our final hope is that you
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  would be seeing them in Tasmania again one day. What do you think about
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  PASKS project? Do you think it is possible? Do you think it is
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  a good idea to bring an animal back from extinction. We want to hear
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  your thoughts. You can leave a comment on our website or email us at
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  Spotlight English dot com. You can also comment on Facebook at Facebook dot com
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  slash Spotlight Radio. The writer and producer of this program was Dan Chrisman.
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  The voices you heard were from the United States. All quotes were adapted for
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  this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and
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  read it on the internet at www dot Spotlight English dot com. This program
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  is called Hope for the Tasmanian Tiger. You can also get our programs delivered
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  directly to your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.
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  We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye