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PLANS TO BRING BACK THE thylacine or Tasmanian tiger \u2013 the dog-like marsupial predator that went extinct some time during the 20th century \u2013 have been met with a mixed reception.<\/span><\/p>\n\n A biotech company called Colossal Biosciences, which is also currently working on a project to recreate the woolly mammoth, has announced it is in the early stages of engineering the thylacine using genetic material from dead animals and living relatives. <\/p>\n\n \u201cOnce we have the engineered cells, we use stem cell technologies and cloning techniques to turn those cells back into a living animal,\u201d says Andrew Pask, head of the Thylacine Integrated Genomic Restoration Research Lab (TIGRR), Colossal\u2019s main project partner. <\/p>\n\n Scientists hope to use genetic material from the thylacine\u2019s closest-living relatives \u2013 the dunnart and the numbat \u2013 to engineer a thylacine-like embryo that gestates inside the womb of a Tasmanian devil. <\/p>\n\n Assuming the \u2018de-extinction\u2019 can be achieved, Colossal says returning thylacines to the wild could have huge benefits for Australian wildlife: \u201cWithout an apex predator, ecosystems plunge into a series of cascading trophic downgrading effects.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n These include the spread of diseases, more wildfires, proliferating invasive species and loss of carbon storage.<\/span><\/p>\n\n But conservationists contacted by BBC <\/em>Wildlife <\/em>challenged some of these assumptions. Tasmanian wildlife conservation consultant Nick Mooney says that the thylacine isn\u2019t needed: \u201cThe dingo has been found across mainland Australia for thousands of years and because it can operate in a pack, it is actually a higher order predator than the thylacine.\u201d <\/p>\n\n Jack Ashby, Australian mammal expert at the University of Cambridge, says projects like this potentially undermine current conservation efforts, not just because they use valuable resources. \u201cThylacines are gone due to overhunting,\u201d he says. \u201cIf we keep saying it can be resurrected, what would that do to our ability to argue against overhunting elsewhere?\u201d <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\n Restoring the extinct thylacine could aid rewilding, but wildlife experts have their doubts 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the extinct thylacine could aid rewilding, but wildlife experts have their 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James Fair <\/strong><\/p>\n\n