Thylacine hunter slams Hemsworth-backed Tasmanian tiger revival bid

The Hollywood star’s bid to revive the extinct Tasmanian Tiger using DNA technology has sparked accusations of watching “Jurassic Park a bit too much”.

The Adelaide thylacine hunter who has devoted his life to proving the Tasmanian tiger still exists has slammed plans to “revive” the creature using DNA technology.

Neil Waters, who relocated from South Australia to Tasmania to commit to his search, said a high-profile plan to bring the thylacine back from the dead was an expensive folly, and that the money would be better spent finding, and then conserving, the animals he is convinced still live in the Tassie bush.

Officially, the thylacine went extinct when the last one, named Ben, died from exposure in Hobart Zoo in 1936.

There have been thousands of reported sightings since, but nobody has been able to provide indisputable proof that the wolf-like marsupial lives on.

A Texas genetics start-up named Colossal Biosciences – which has already announced plans to use DNA technology to bring back the woolly mammoth – plans to resurrect the thylacine using DNA extracted from a 108-year-old specimen held by the Victoria Museum.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor in Marvel Studios'. Picture: Jasin Boland

Researcher Neil Waters of the Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia. Picture Michael Marschall

In a highly-complicated scientific process, Colossal plans to used CRISPR and other genome engineering technology to insert thylacine genes into the genome of a dasyurid, a family of marsupials that includes quolls, Tasmanian devils and dunnarts.

Eventually a fully formed embryo would be placed into a surrogate, and, all going to plan, a thylacine – or something very genetically close to one – would exist.

The process would then be repeated and, according to the company, revived thylacines would eventually be released back into the Tasmanian wilderness.

The project has attracted significant attention thanks to backing of Hollywood heavyweights the Hemsworth brothers, who are helping to fund the project.

“Our family remains dedicated to supporting conservationist efforts around the world and protecting Australia’s biodiversity is a high priority,” Chris Hemsworth, better known as Thor, said in a statement.

A bushman with a thylacine that had been shot.

A 3D rendering of a thylacine.

“The Tassie Tiger’s extinction had a devastating effect on our ecosystem and we are thrilled to support the revolutionary conservation efforts that are being made by Dr (Andrew) Pask and the entire Colossal team.”

Mr Waters, who established the Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia and has a large network of trail cameras in the Tasmanian bush, said he believed the project set a worrying precedent.

“The real tragedy here is that wealthy people see more value for their investment dollars in trying to create and own patented life forms rather than investigating nature and truly finding out what is out there,” Mr Waters said.

“I think the Hemsworths have watched Jurassic Park a bit too much and still didn’t understand and appreciate the overall message of how bad these ‘experiments’ on living animals – in this case endangered numbats, and fat tailed dunnarts – can end up and we have a disaster for the natural world unfold.”

Mr Waters said he’d also love to see state and federal government funds being used to finance legitimate searches for the thylacine.

“The other real tragedy here is that our governments in Australia have no interest in investigating the very real likelihood that the Thylacine is not extinct and is actually critically endangered,” he said.