AUSTRALIAN: Australian scientists have called for the creation of a wildlife reserve for an animal which became extinct nearly 70 years ago - the Tasmanian tiger.
Biologists hope to bring the species back from the dead through cloning and insist that unless the reserve is designated now, it will be lost to logging.
Large areas of Tasmania, where the thylacine was driven to extinction in 1936, are being felled, with much of the timber exported to Japan to be made into wood chips.
Prof Mike Archer, dean of science at the University of New South Wales, who since 2000 has led efforts to clone the Tasmanian tiger, believes one could be cloned within 10 years. He wants the government to create a reserve in the Styx Valley, two hours' drive west of Hobart, which is under threat from timber companies.
"The Styx is where the thylacine made its last stand before being hunted to extinction," Prof Archer said. "It has the complex mix of open areas, woodlands and dense rainforest which was the preferred habitat of the thylacine. It seems the obvious choice."
Prof Archer said that if the thylacine cloning project was successful, the forest would become a huge tourist attraction, generating millions of dollars a year.
"We could blend the mystique of the thylacine, the king of Australian beasts, with the romance of the forest. It would be much better than chopping down the forests for short-term gain."
The Tasmanian tiger was a wolf-like marsupial which earned its name from the stripes along its back.
The Tasmanian government has called the cloning project "science fiction".
Prof Archer's team is hoping to resurrect the Tasmanian tiger with DNA taken from a pickled thylacine pup, along with bones and skulls preserved in museums around the world.