Wildlife Australia - Spring 2017

Diverting funds from endangered species

Conservation funding is already stretched, and there are
concerns that de-extinction could divert money away from
conserving real live endangered species. Whether or not this
is true largely depends on where the money for de-extinction
comes from. If resurrection projects are funded by private,
philanthropic donors, it can be argued that the money may
never have gone to conservation otherwise. If, however, research
funding is diverted away from conservation projects and towards
de-extinction, then de-extinction could be to the detriment
of existing conservation efforts. Increasingly, researchers and
conservationists are using crowd-funding to underwrite their
projects. In this arena, de-extinction competes with conservation,
as both teams arguably target the same audience. It is also
possible that some of the techniques being investigated for
de-extinction could help conserve endangered species. Gene
editing could be used to reintroduce lost genetic variation from
museum specimens into surviving populations with low genetic
diversity. In this way, de-extinction could benefit conservation,
although perhaps not quite in the way its proponents envisage.
Carefully prioritising which species should be resurrected
is also important. The most realistic and potentially useful
candidates for de-extinction would be species that were only
recently lost from the landscape. On that score, the gastric-
brooding frog, the bucardo, and possibly the thylacine are decent
targets, but mammoth and moa are not. Unfortunately, many
de-extinction target species seem to have been selected based
on charisma rather than conservation outcomes, casting doubt
on the conservation motivations of many de-extinction projects.
Efforts to engineer functional proxies of extinct species are
gathering momentum, and excitement is understandably high.
The techniques that emerge from de-extinction research may or
may not prove useful for conserving threatened species, but they
won’t bring back exact replicas of extinct creatures. While you or
your children may one day see a thylacine-like creature padding
through the bush, it won’t be a thylacine (not unless the species
is ‘rediscovered’ rather than ‘resurrected’). More importantly,
the challenges of producing a proxy are only the beginning.
Releasing these creations into the wild is fraught with problems
that are only just starting to be considered. Interestingly, the
people considering the post-release challenges for resurrected
species tend to be conservation scientists rather than
de-extinction researchers. Those pushing for de-extinction may
claim there are biodiversity benefits, but so far, de-extinction
seems driven by curiosity rather than conservation concern.

READING Steeves TE, Johnson JA, Hale ML. Maximising evolutionary potential

in functional proxies for extinct species: a conservation genetic perspective on

de-extinction. Functional Ecology 31.5: 1032–1040. Bennett JR, et al. 2017. Spending

limited resources on de-extinction could lead to net biodiversity loss. Nature Ecology

& Evolution, 1, p.0053. Berns GS, Ashwell KW. 2017. Reconstruction of the cortical

maps of the Tasmanian tiger and comparison to the Tasmanian devil. PloS one, 12(1):

p.e0168993 Seddon PJ, 2017. The ecology of de-extinction. Functional Ecology,

31(5): 992–995. Iacona G, et al. 2016. Prioritizing revived species: what are the

conservation management implications of de-extinction? Functional Ecology.

HELEN TAYLOR is a Marsden-funded research fellow at the University

of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She is a conservation geneticist who

investigates what happens to populations when they get very small. Helen

mainly works with threatened birds and is currently investigating whether

inbreeding is causing poor male fertility in New Zealand’s birds.

CONSERVATION INNOVATION

IS THE THYLACINE EVEN EXTINCT?

The thylacine was declared

extinct decades ago, yet 6–10

sightings (some more credible

than others) are still reported

annually. In 2016, Sleightholme

and Campbell analysed 1167

confirmed and geo-referenced

reports from 1900–1940 of captured, killed or sighted thylacines

and determined that they likely survived in the Tasmanian

wilderness until the mid-1940s. A 2017 study by Carlson, Bond

and Burgio used mathematical extinction theories to determine

that the species could not have lasted beyond the 1960s. Despite

the unlikelihood of the thylacine’s continued existence, millions

of dollars have been plunged into searches. In 2016, The Bulletin

offered an $AUD1.25 million prize to anyone who could prove

the thylacine still lived; the money went unclaimed. More recently,

a historical sighting on Cape York has prompted an extensive

camera study. Recounting his 1983 sighting to media and

researchers, tour guide operator Brian Hobbs elaborated on the

characteristic red eyeshine of the creature in the dark. When a

respected park ranger also revealed a nocturnal sighting in the

area in the 1980s, it captured the interest of Dr Sandra Abell and

Professor Bill Laurance from James Cook University. Fifty camera

traps, baited with a known attractant and set several kilometres

apart on Cape York, will be carefully monitored for any sign of

the animal until November 2017. If the thylacine lurks in northern

forests, it will join a short but celebrated list of animals that have

returned from extinction, including the Javan elephant, New

Zealand takahe, mountain pygmy-possum (see p. 19) and the New

Guinea highland wild dog (see p. 49).

Carlson CJ, Bond AL, Burgio KR. 2017. Estimating the extinction date of the

thylacine accounting for unconfirmed sightings. bioRxiv, p.123331. Sleightholme

SR, Campbell CR. 2016. A retrospective assessment of 20th century thylacine

populations. Australian Zoologist, 38(1):102–129.

Professor Mike Archer’s

Lazarus Project aims to

resurrect the gastric-

brooding frog.

Photo: Hal Cogger

Could the Tasmanian devil

prove a suitable surrogate

for a thylacine proxy? A

2017 study by Gregory

Burns and Ken Ashwell, who

reconstructed and compared

white matter tracts in the

brains of Tasmanian devils and

thylacines, revealed differences

in the cortex, possibly

because predatory thylacines

need better planning and

decision-making abilities

than scavenging Tasmanian

devils; such differences would

need to be considered if

de-extinction with a surrogate

were to go ahead. Photo:

Matthias Appel

42 | Wildlife Australia | SPRING 2017