0:00:00.840,0:00:03.776
I do want to test this question[br]we're all interested in:

0:00:03.800,0:00:06.816
Does extinction have to be forever?

0:00:06.840,0:00:09.536
I'm focused on two projects[br]I want to tell you about.

0:00:09.560,0:00:11.376
One is the Thylacine Project.

0:00:11.400,0:00:13.162
The other one is the Lazarus Project,

0:00:13.186,0:00:15.896
and that's focused[br]on the gastric-brooding frog.

0:00:15.920,0:00:17.816
And it would be a fair question to ask,

0:00:17.840,0:00:20.096
why have we focused on these two animals?

0:00:20.120,0:00:25.496
Well, point number one, each of them[br]represents a unique family of its own.

0:00:25.520,0:00:27.096
We've lost a whole family.

0:00:27.120,0:00:29.736
That's a big chunk[br]of the global genome gone.

0:00:29.760,0:00:31.336
I'd like it back.

0:00:31.360,0:00:35.696
The second reason[br]is that we killed these things.

0:00:35.720,0:00:40.656
In the case of the thylacine, regrettably,[br]we shot every one that we saw.

0:00:40.680,0:00:42.116
We slaughtered them.

0:00:42.600,0:00:47.696
In the case of the gastric-brooding frog,[br]we may have "fungicided" it to death.

0:00:47.720,0:00:50.416
There's a dreadful fungus[br]that's moving through the world

0:00:50.440,0:00:52.056
that's called the chytrid fungus,

0:00:52.080,0:00:54.296
and it's nailing frogs all over the world.

0:00:54.320,0:00:56.368
We think that's probably[br]what got this frog,

0:00:56.392,0:00:58.776
and humans are spreading this fungus.

0:00:58.800,0:01:01.656
And this introduces[br]a very important ethical point,

0:01:01.680,0:01:03.896
and I think you will have heard[br]this many times

0:01:03.920,0:01:05.536
when this topic comes up.

0:01:05.560,0:01:07.296
What I think is important

0:01:07.320,0:01:10.896
is that, if it's clear[br]that we exterminated these species,

0:01:10.920,0:01:14.336
then I think we not only[br]have a moral obligation

0:01:14.360,0:01:15.837
to see what we can do about it,

0:01:15.861,0:01:20.011
but I think we've got a moral imperative[br]to try to do something, if we can.

0:01:20.720,0:01:23.576
OK. Let me talk to you[br]about the Lazarus Project.

0:01:23.600,0:01:26.456
It's a frog. And you think, frog.

0:01:26.480,0:01:29.856
Yeah, but this was not just any frog.

0:01:29.880,0:01:32.656
Unlike a normal frog,[br]which lays its eggs in the water

0:01:32.680,0:01:35.336
and goes away[br]and wishes its froglets well,

0:01:35.360,0:01:38.976
this frog swallowed its fertilized eggs,

0:01:39.000,0:01:42.656
swallowed them into the stomach,[br]where it should be having food,

0:01:42.680,0:01:47.176
didn't digest the eggs,[br]and turned its stomach into a uterus.

0:01:47.200,0:01:50.536
In the stomach, the eggs[br]went on to develop into tadpoles,

0:01:50.560,0:01:54.416
and in the stomach, the tadpoles[br]went on to develop into frogs,

0:01:54.440,0:01:56.096
and they grew in the stomach

0:01:56.120,0:02:00.136
until eventually the poor old frog[br]was at risk of bursting apart.

0:02:00.160,0:02:04.216
It has a little cough and a hiccup,[br]and out comes sprays of little frogs.

0:02:04.240,0:02:06.976
Now, when biologists saw this,[br]they were agog.

0:02:07.000,0:02:08.936
They thought, this is incredible.

0:02:08.960,0:02:12.776
No animal, let alone a frog,[br]has been known to do this,

0:02:12.800,0:02:14.936
to change one organ[br]in the body into another.

0:02:14.960,0:02:18.776
And you can imagine the medical world[br]went nuts over this as well.

0:02:18.800,0:02:20.016
If we could understand

0:02:20.040,0:02:23.336
how that frog is managing[br]the way its tummy works,

0:02:23.360,0:02:25.816
is there information here[br]that we need to understand

0:02:25.840,0:02:29.176
or could usefully use to help ourselves?

0:02:29.200,0:02:32.536
Now, I'm not suggesting we want[br]to raise our babies in our stomach,

0:02:32.560,0:02:34.176
but I am suggesting it's possible

0:02:34.200,0:02:36.856
we might want to manage[br]gastric secretion in the gut.

0:02:36.880,0:02:39.696
And just as everybody[br]got excited about it, bang!

0:02:39.720,0:02:40.920
It was extinct.

0:02:42.120,0:02:43.576
I called up my friend,

0:02:43.600,0:02:45.981
Professor Mike Tyler[br]in the University of Adelaide.

0:02:46.005,0:02:50.376
He was the last person who had this frog,[br]a colony of these things, in his lab.

0:02:50.400,0:02:53.448
And I said, "Mike, by any chance --"[br]This was 30 or 40 years ago.

0:02:53.472,0:02:57.216
"By any chance had you kept[br]any frozen tissue of this frog?"

0:02:57.240,0:02:58.456
And he thought about it,

0:02:58.480,0:03:02.296
and he went to his deep freezer,[br]minus 20 degrees centigrade,

0:03:02.320,0:03:04.576
and he poured through[br]everything in the freezer,

0:03:04.600,0:03:08.896
and there in the bottom was a jar[br]and it contained tissues of these frogs.

0:03:08.920,0:03:10.176
This was very exciting,

0:03:10.200,0:03:13.536
but there was no reason[br]why we should expect that this would work,

0:03:13.560,0:03:17.496
because this tissue[br]had not had any antifreeze put in it,

0:03:17.520,0:03:21.176
cryoprotectants, to look after it[br]when it was frozen.

0:03:21.200,0:03:23.936
And normally, when water freezes,[br]as you know, it expands,

0:03:23.960,0:03:25.776
and the same thing happens in a cell.

0:03:25.800,0:03:30.176
If you freeze tissues, the water expands,[br]damages or bursts the cell walls.

0:03:30.200,0:03:32.616
Well, we looked at the tissue[br]under the microscope.

0:03:32.640,0:03:35.376
It actually didn't look bad.[br]The cell walls looked intact.

0:03:35.400,0:03:37.026
So we thought, let's give it a go.

0:03:37.480,0:03:41.736
What we did is something called[br]somatic cell nuclear transplantation.

0:03:41.760,0:03:45.376
We took the eggs[br]of a related species, a living frog,

0:03:45.400,0:03:48.256
and we inactivated the nucleus of the egg.

0:03:48.280,0:03:50.696
We used ultraviolet radiation to do that.

0:03:50.720,0:03:55.456
And then we took the dead nucleus[br]from the dead tissue of the extinct frog

0:03:55.480,0:03:58.576
and we inserted those nuclei[br]into that egg.

0:03:58.600,0:04:02.056
Now, by rights, this is[br]kind of like a cloning project,

0:04:02.080,0:04:03.296
like what produced Dolly,

0:04:03.320,0:04:04.936
but it's actually very different,

0:04:04.960,0:04:07.696
because Dolly was live sheep[br]into live sheep cells.

0:04:07.720,0:04:10.056
That was a miracle, but it was workable.

0:04:10.080,0:04:13.736
What we're trying to do is take[br]a dead nucleus from an extinct species

0:04:13.760,0:04:17.136
and put it into a completely different[br]species and expect that to work.

0:04:17.160,0:04:19.456
Well, we had no real reason[br]to expect it would,

0:04:19.480,0:04:22.130
and we tried hundreds[br]and hundreds of these.

0:04:22.800,0:04:25.576
And just last February,[br]the last time we did these trials,

0:04:25.600,0:04:28.440
I saw a miracle starting to happen.

0:04:29.040,0:04:32.336
What we found was[br]most of these eggs didn't work,

0:04:32.360,0:04:35.336
but then suddenly,[br]one of them began to divide.

0:04:35.360,0:04:36.736
That was so exciting.

0:04:36.760,0:04:39.656
And then the egg divided again.[br]And then again.

0:04:39.680,0:04:42.696
And pretty soon,[br]we had early-stage embryos

0:04:42.720,0:04:45.496
with hundreds of cells forming those.

0:04:45.520,0:04:48.296
We even DNA-tested some of these cells,

0:04:48.320,0:04:52.136
and the DNA of the extinct frog[br]is in those cells.

0:04:52.160,0:04:55.656
So we're very excited.[br]This is not a tadpole. It's not a frog.

0:04:55.680,0:04:58.416
But it's a long way along the journey

0:04:58.440,0:05:01.256
to producing, or bringing back,[br]an extinct species.

0:05:01.280,0:05:02.496
And this is news.

0:05:02.520,0:05:04.976
We haven't announced this publicly before.

0:05:05.000,0:05:06.216
We're excited.

0:05:06.240,0:05:07.856
We've got to get past this point.

0:05:07.880,0:05:10.404
We now want this ball of cells[br]to start to gastrulate,

0:05:10.428,0:05:13.056
to turn in so that it will produce[br]the other tissues.

0:05:13.080,0:05:16.776
It'll go on and produce[br]a tadpole and then a frog.

0:05:16.800,0:05:18.016
Watch this space.

0:05:18.040,0:05:20.233
I think we're going to have[br]this frog hopping

0:05:20.257,0:05:21.976
glad to be back in the world again.

0:05:22.720,0:05:24.536
(Applause)

0:05:24.560,0:05:25.766
Thank you.

0:05:25.790,0:05:27.896
(Applause)

0:05:27.920,0:05:30.578
We haven't done it yet,[br]but keep the applause ready.

0:05:31.080,0:05:35.056
The second project I want to talk[br]to you about is the Thylacine Project.

0:05:35.080,0:05:38.936
The thylacine looks a bit,[br]to most people, like a dog,

0:05:38.960,0:05:41.103
or maybe like a tiger,[br]because it has stripes.

0:05:41.127,0:05:43.936
But it's not related to any of those.[br]It's a marsupial.

0:05:43.960,0:05:48.136
It raised its young in a pouch,[br]like a koala or a kangaroo would do,

0:05:48.160,0:05:53.176
and it has a long history,[br]a long, fascinating history,

0:05:53.200,0:05:56.096
that goes back 25 million years.

0:05:56.120,0:05:57.735
But it's also a tragic history.

0:05:58.200,0:06:03.136
The first one that we see occurs[br]in the ancient rain forests of Australia

0:06:03.160,0:06:05.136
about 25 million years ago,

0:06:05.160,0:06:07.496
and the National Geographic Society

0:06:07.520,0:06:09.751
is helping us to explore[br]these fossil deposits.

0:06:09.775,0:06:11.296
This is Riversleigh.

0:06:11.320,0:06:14.376
In those fossil rocks[br]are some amazing animals.

0:06:14.400,0:06:16.296
We found marsupial lions.

0:06:16.320,0:06:18.896
We found carnivorous kangaroos.

0:06:18.920,0:06:21.376
It's not what you usually[br]think about as a kangaroo,

0:06:21.400,0:06:23.136
but these are meat-eating kangaroos.

0:06:23.160,0:06:25.056
We found the biggest bird in the world,

0:06:25.080,0:06:27.223
bigger than that thing[br]that was in Madagascar,

0:06:27.247,0:06:28.736
and it too was a flesh eater.

0:06:28.760,0:06:31.016
It was a giant, weird duck.

0:06:31.040,0:06:33.936
And crocodiles were not behaving[br]at that time either.

0:06:33.960,0:06:36.336
You think of crocodiles[br]as doing their ugly thing,

0:06:36.360,0:06:37.776
sitting in a pool of water.

0:06:37.800,0:06:40.336
These crocodiles[br]were actually out on the land

0:06:40.360,0:06:45.576
and they were even climbing trees[br]and jumping on prey on the ground.

0:06:45.600,0:06:49.751
We had, in Australia, drop crocs.[br]They really do exist.

0:06:49.775,0:06:50.874
(Laughter)

0:06:50.898,0:06:53.916
But what they were dropping on[br]was not only other weird animals

0:06:53.940,0:06:55.216
but also thylacines.

0:06:55.240,0:06:59.176
There were five different kinds[br]of thylacines in those ancient forests,

0:06:59.200,0:07:03.656
and they ranged from great big ones[br]to middle-sized ones

0:07:03.680,0:07:07.416
to one that was[br]about the size of a chihuahua.

0:07:07.440,0:07:09.056
Paris Hilton would have been able

0:07:09.080,0:07:11.736
to carry one of these things around[br]in a little handbag,

0:07:11.760,0:07:13.536
until a drop croc landed on her.

0:07:13.560,0:07:15.496
At any rate, it was a fascinating place,

0:07:15.520,0:07:18.296
but unfortunately,[br]Australia didn't stay this way.

0:07:18.320,0:07:21.816
Climate change has affected the world[br]for a long period of time,

0:07:21.840,0:07:26.256
and gradually, the forests disappeared,[br]the country began to dry out,

0:07:26.280,0:07:28.896
and the number of kinds[br]of thylacines began to decline,

0:07:28.920,0:07:30.496
until by five million years ago,

0:07:30.520,0:07:31.696
only one left.

0:07:31.720,0:07:35.256
By 10,000 years ago,[br]they had disappeared from New Guinea,

0:07:35.280,0:07:42.136
and unfortunately, by 4,000 years ago,[br]somebodies, we don't know who this was,

0:07:42.160,0:07:45.896
introduced dingoes --[br]this is a very archaic kind of a dog --

0:07:45.920,0:07:47.136
into Australia.

0:07:47.160,0:07:48.376
And as you can see,

0:07:48.400,0:07:51.216
dingoes are very similar[br]in their body form to thylacines.

0:07:51.240,0:07:54.176
That similarity meant[br]they probably competed.

0:07:54.200,0:07:56.176
They were eating the same kinds of foods.

0:07:56.200,0:08:00.816
It's even possible that aborigines were[br]keeping some of these dingoes as pets,

0:08:00.840,0:08:04.276
and therefore they may have had[br]an advantage in the battle for survival.

0:08:04.300,0:08:06.916
All we know is, soon after[br]the dingoes were brought in,

0:08:06.940,0:08:09.356
thylacines were extinct[br]in the Australian mainland,

0:08:09.380,0:08:11.858
and after that they only[br]survived in Tasmania.

0:08:13.480,0:08:14.696
Then, unfortunately,

0:08:14.720,0:08:19.256
the next sad part of the thylacine story[br]is that Europeans arrived in 1788,

0:08:19.280,0:08:22.056
and they brought with them[br]the things they valued,

0:08:22.080,0:08:23.760
and that included sheep.

0:08:24.360,0:08:26.896
They took one look[br]at the thylacine in Tasmania,

0:08:26.920,0:08:30.016
and they thought, hang on,[br]this is not going to work.

0:08:30.040,0:08:32.287
That guy is going to eat all our sheep.

0:08:32.938,0:08:35.176
That was not what happened, actually.

0:08:35.200,0:08:38.775
Wild dogs did eat a few of the sheep,[br]but the thylacine got a bad rap.

0:08:38.799,0:08:42.775
But immediately, the government said,[br]that's it, let's get rid of them,

0:08:42.799,0:08:46.052
and they paid people[br]to slaughter every one that they saw.

0:08:46.600,0:08:48.896
By the early 1930s,

0:08:48.920,0:08:52.736
3,000 to 4,000 thylacines[br]had been murdered.

0:08:52.760,0:08:56.125
It was a disaster,[br]and they were about to hit the wall.

0:08:57.080,0:08:59.536
Have a look at this bit of film footage.

0:08:59.560,0:09:03.296
It makes me very sad because,[br]while it's a fascinating animal,

0:09:03.320,0:09:08.376
and it's amazing to think[br]that we had the technology to film it

0:09:08.400,0:09:12.456
before it actually plunged off[br]that cliff of extinction,

0:09:12.480,0:09:15.096
we didn't, unfortunately,[br]at this same time,

0:09:15.120,0:09:19.176
have a molecule of concern[br]about the welfare for this species.

0:09:19.200,0:09:22.576
These are photos of the last[br]surviving thylacine, Benjamin,

0:09:22.600,0:09:24.899
who was in the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart.

0:09:25.680,0:09:27.296
To add insult to injury,

0:09:27.320,0:09:31.016
having swept this species[br]nearly off the table,

0:09:31.040,0:09:33.536
this animal, when it died of neglect --

0:09:33.560,0:09:37.541
The keepers didn't let it[br]into the hutch on a cold night in Hobart.

0:09:38.080,0:09:41.936
It died of exposure, and in the morning,[br]when they found the body of Benjamin,

0:09:41.960,0:09:46.938
they still cared so little for this animal[br]that they threw the body in the dump.

0:09:48.600,0:09:50.520
Does it have to stay this way?

0:09:51.720,0:09:54.096
In 1990, I was in the Australian Museum.

0:09:54.120,0:09:55.856
I was fascinated by thylacines.

0:09:55.880,0:09:57.976
I've always been obsessed[br]with these animals.

0:09:58.000,0:09:59.256
And I was studying skulls,

0:09:59.280,0:10:02.536
trying to figure out their relationships[br]to other sorts of animals,

0:10:02.560,0:10:04.536
and I saw this jar,

0:10:04.560,0:10:09.096
and here, in the jar,[br]was a little girl thylacine pup,

0:10:09.120,0:10:10.816
perhaps six months old.

0:10:10.840,0:10:13.176
The guy who had found it[br]and killed the mother

0:10:13.200,0:10:16.336
had pickled the pup,[br]and they pickled it in alcohol.

0:10:16.360,0:10:19.976
I'm a paleontologist, but I still knew[br]alcohol was a DNA preservative.

0:10:20.000,0:10:24.336
But this was 1990,[br]and I asked my geneticist friends,

0:10:24.360,0:10:26.776
couldn't we think[br]about going into this pup

0:10:26.800,0:10:29.776
and extracting DNA, if it's there,

0:10:29.800,0:10:32.016
and then somewhere[br]down the line in the future,

0:10:32.040,0:10:34.256
we'll use this DNA[br]to bring the thylacine back?

0:10:34.280,0:10:38.035
The geneticists laughed.[br]But this was six years before Dolly.

0:10:38.791,0:10:40.538
Cloning was science fiction.

0:10:40.562,0:10:41.796
It had not happened.

0:10:41.820,0:10:44.216
But then suddenly cloning did happen.

0:10:44.240,0:10:47.376
And I thought, when I became[br]director of the Australian Museum,

0:10:47.400,0:10:48.736
I'm going to give this a go.

0:10:48.760,0:10:50.216
I put a team together.

0:10:50.240,0:10:53.096
We went into that pup[br]to see what was in it,

0:10:53.120,0:10:55.296
and we did find thylacine DNA.

0:10:55.320,0:10:57.496
It was a eureka moment.[br]We were very excited.

0:10:57.520,0:11:01.216
Unfortunately, we also found[br]a lot of human DNA.

0:11:01.240,0:11:04.216
Every old curator[br]who'd been in that museum

0:11:04.240,0:11:06.096
had seen this wonderful specimen,

0:11:06.120,0:11:08.616
put their hand in the jar,[br]pulled it out and thought,

0:11:08.640,0:11:11.176
"Wow, look at that,"[br]plop, dropped it back in the jar,

0:11:11.200,0:11:12.776
contaminating this specimen.

0:11:12.800,0:11:14.096
And that was a worry.

0:11:14.120,0:11:16.336
If the goal here was to get the DNA out

0:11:16.360,0:11:20.296
and use the DNA down the track[br]to try to bring a thylacine back,

0:11:20.320,0:11:21.736
what we didn't want happening

0:11:21.760,0:11:24.016
when the information[br]was shoved into the machine

0:11:24.040,0:11:26.456
and the wheel turned around[br]and the lights flashed,

0:11:26.480,0:11:30.456
was to have a wizened old horrible curator[br]pop out the other end of the machine.

0:11:30.480,0:11:34.176
It would've kept the curator very happy,[br]but it wasn't going to keep us happy.

0:11:34.200,0:11:37.256
So we went back to these specimens[br]and we started digging around,

0:11:37.280,0:11:40.416
and particularly,[br]we looked into the teeth of skulls,

0:11:40.440,0:11:43.496
hard parts where humans[br]had not been able to get their fingers,

0:11:43.520,0:11:45.464
and we found much better quality DNA.

0:11:46.000,0:11:48.176
We found nuclear mitochondrial genes.

0:11:48.200,0:11:49.696
It's there. So we got it.

0:11:49.720,0:11:52.176
OK. What could we do with this stuff?

0:11:52.200,0:11:54.396
Well, George Church,[br]in his book, "Regenesis,"

0:11:54.420,0:11:57.456
has mentioned many of the techniques[br]that are rapidly advancing

0:11:57.480,0:11:59.094
to work with fragmented DNA.

0:11:59.520,0:12:04.136
We would hope that we'll be able[br]to get that DNA back into a viable form,

0:12:04.160,0:12:06.816
and then, much like we've done[br]with the Lazarus Project,

0:12:06.840,0:12:09.896
get that stuff into an egg[br]of a host species.

0:12:09.920,0:12:12.336
It has to be a different species.[br]What could it be?

0:12:12.360,0:12:14.136
Why couldn't it be a Tasmanian devil?

0:12:14.160,0:12:16.226
They're related, distantly, to thylacines.

0:12:16.760,0:12:20.450
And then the Tasmanian devil is going[br]to pop a thylacine out the south end.

0:12:21.164,0:12:24.176
Critics of this project say, hang on.

0:12:24.200,0:12:27.807
Thylacine, Tasmanian devil?[br]That's going to hurt.

0:12:28.320,0:12:31.176
No, it's not. These are marsupials.

0:12:31.200,0:12:34.056
They give birth to babies[br]that are the size of a jelly bean.

0:12:34.080,0:12:37.456
That Tasmanian devil's[br]not even going to know it gave birth.

0:12:37.480,0:12:38.936
It is, shortly, going to think

0:12:38.960,0:12:42.056
it's got the ugliest[br]Tasmanian devil baby in the world,

0:12:42.080,0:12:44.993
so maybe it'll need some help[br]to keep it going.

0:12:46.440,0:12:48.696
Andrew Pask and his colleagues[br]have demonstrated

0:12:48.720,0:12:50.576
this might not be a waste of time.

0:12:50.600,0:12:53.296
And it's sort of in the future,[br]we haven't got there yet,

0:12:53.320,0:12:55.696
but it's the kind of thing[br]we want to think about.

0:12:55.720,0:12:58.256
They took some of this same[br]pickled thylacine DNA

0:12:58.280,0:13:01.576
and they spliced it into a mouse genome,

0:13:01.600,0:13:03.096
but they put a tag on it

0:13:03.120,0:13:07.096
so that anything[br]that this thylacine DNA produced

0:13:07.120,0:13:09.976
would appear blue-green in the mouse baby.

0:13:10.000,0:13:14.136
In other words, if thylacine tissues[br]were being produced by the thylacine DNA,

0:13:14.160,0:13:16.056
it would be able to be recognized.

0:13:16.080,0:13:20.096
When the baby popped up,[br]it was filled with blue-green tissues.

0:13:20.120,0:13:22.896
And that tells us if we can get[br]that genome back together,

0:13:22.920,0:13:24.376
get it into a live cell,

0:13:24.400,0:13:26.894
it's going to produce thylacine stuff.

0:13:27.440,0:13:28.976
Is this a risk?

0:13:29.000,0:13:30.936
You've taken the bits of one animal

0:13:30.960,0:13:34.207
and you've mixed them into the cell[br]of a different kind of an animal.

0:13:34.231,0:13:38.336
Are we going to get a Frankenstein?[br]Some kind of weird hybrid chimera?

0:13:38.360,0:13:39.616
And the answer is no.

0:13:39.640,0:13:44.376
If the only nuclear DNA that goes[br]into this hybrid cell is thylacine DNA,

0:13:44.400,0:13:47.570
that's the only thing that can pop out[br]the other end of the devil.

0:13:48.520,0:13:52.016
OK, if we can do this,[br]could we put it back?

0:13:52.040,0:13:53.816
This is a key question for everybody.

0:13:53.840,0:13:57.576
Does it have to stay in a laboratory,[br]or could we put it back where it belongs?

0:13:57.600,0:14:00.976
Could we put it back in the throne[br]of the king of beasts in Tasmania,

0:14:01.000,0:14:02.496
restore that ecosystem?

0:14:02.520,0:14:06.429
Or has Tasmania changed so much[br]that that's no longer possible?

0:14:07.000,0:14:08.776
I've been to Tasmania.

0:14:08.800,0:14:11.816
I've been to many of the areas[br]where the thylacines were common.

0:14:11.840,0:14:14.696
I've even spoken to people,[br]like Peter Carter here,

0:14:14.720,0:14:16.976
who when I spoke to him, was 90 years old,

0:14:17.000,0:14:20.856
but in 1926, this man[br]and his father and his brother

0:14:20.880,0:14:22.256
caught thylacines.

0:14:22.280,0:14:23.616
They trapped them.

0:14:23.640,0:14:27.936
And when I spoke to this man,[br]I was looking in his eyes and thinking,

0:14:27.960,0:14:34.136
"Behind those eyes is a brain that has[br]memories of what thylacines feel like,

0:14:34.160,0:14:36.616
what they smelled like,[br]what they sounded like."

0:14:36.640,0:14:38.176
He led them around on a rope.

0:14:38.200,0:14:40.256
He has personal experiences

0:14:40.280,0:14:43.499
that I would give my left leg[br]to have in my head.

0:14:44.000,0:14:46.296
We'd all love to have[br]this sort of thing happen.

0:14:46.320,0:14:48.576
Anyway, I asked Peter, by any chance,

0:14:48.600,0:14:51.336
could he take us back[br]to where he caught those thylacines.

0:14:51.360,0:14:53.976
My interest was in whether[br]the environment had changed.

0:14:54.000,0:14:57.776
He thought hard. It was nearly 80 years[br]before this that he'd been at this hut.

0:14:57.800,0:15:00.056
At any rate, he led us[br]down this bush track,

0:15:00.080,0:15:02.056
and there, right where he remembered,

0:15:02.080,0:15:03.336
was the hut,

0:15:03.360,0:15:05.816
and tears came into his eyes.

0:15:05.840,0:15:07.656
He looked at the hut. We went inside.

0:15:07.680,0:15:10.136
There were the wooden boards[br]on the sides of the hut

0:15:10.160,0:15:12.936
where he and his father[br]and his brother had slept at night.

0:15:12.960,0:15:15.616
And he told me, as it all[br]was flooding back in memories.

0:15:15.640,0:15:18.296
He said, "I remember[br]the thylacines going around the hut

0:15:18.320,0:15:19.656
wondering what was inside,"

0:15:19.680,0:15:23.176
and he said they made sounds[br]like "Yip! Yip! Yip!"

0:15:23.200,0:15:26.416
All of these are parts of his life[br]and what he remembers.

0:15:26.440,0:15:29.856
And the key question for me[br]was to ask Peter, has it changed?

0:15:29.880,0:15:31.096
And he said no.

0:15:31.120,0:15:33.256
The southern beech forests[br]surrounded his hut

0:15:33.280,0:15:35.616
just like it was[br]when he was there in 1926.

0:15:35.640,0:15:37.616
The grasslands were sweeping away.

0:15:37.640,0:15:39.616
That's classic thylacine habitat.

0:15:39.640,0:15:42.496
And the animals in those areas[br]were the same that were there

0:15:42.520,0:15:43.976
when the thylacine was around.

0:15:44.000,0:15:45.520
So could we put it back? Yes.

0:15:46.640,0:15:50.256
Is that all we would do?[br]And this is an interesting question.

0:15:50.280,0:15:52.536
Sometimes you might[br]be able to put it back,

0:15:52.560,0:15:55.776
but is that the safest way[br]to make sure it never goes extinct again?

0:15:55.800,0:15:57.336
And I don't think so.

0:15:57.360,0:16:00.656
I think gradually, as we see species[br]all around the world,

0:16:00.680,0:16:04.456
it's kind of a mantra that wildlife[br]is increasingly not safe in the wild.

0:16:04.480,0:16:06.671
We'd love to think it is,[br]but we know it isn't.

0:16:06.695,0:16:09.096
We need other parallel[br]strategies coming online.

0:16:09.120,0:16:10.616
And this one interests me.

0:16:10.640,0:16:13.362
Some of the thylacines[br]that were being turned in to zoos,

0:16:13.386,0:16:15.136
sanctuaries, even at the museums,

0:16:15.160,0:16:17.005
had collar marks on the neck.

0:16:17.520,0:16:19.416
They were being kept as pets,

0:16:19.440,0:16:22.416
and we know a lot[br]of bush tales and memories

0:16:22.440,0:16:23.976
of people who had them as pets,

0:16:24.000,0:16:26.176
and they say they were[br]wonderful, friendly.

0:16:26.200,0:16:27.416
This particular one

0:16:27.440,0:16:30.416
came in out of the forest to lick this boy

0:16:30.440,0:16:33.050
and curled up around[br]the fireplace to go to sleep.

0:16:33.074,0:16:34.456
A wild animal.

0:16:34.480,0:16:38.776
And I'd like to ask the question.[br]We need to think about this.

0:16:38.800,0:16:44.256
If it had not been illegal[br]to keep these thylacines as pets then,

0:16:44.280,0:16:46.456
would the thylacine be extinct now?

0:16:46.480,0:16:48.216
And I'm positive it wouldn't.

0:16:48.240,0:16:50.732
We need to think[br]about this in today's world.

0:16:51.240,0:16:55.776
Could it be that getting animals[br]close to us so that we value them,

0:16:55.800,0:16:57.176
maybe they won't go extinct?

0:16:57.200,0:16:59.736
And this is such a critical issue for us

0:16:59.760,0:17:01.096
because if we don't do that,

0:17:01.120,0:17:05.256
we're going to watch more of these animals[br]plunge off the precipice.

0:17:05.280,0:17:06.496
As far as I'm concerned,

0:17:06.520,0:17:10.656
this is why we're trying to do[br]these kinds of de-extinction projects.

0:17:10.680,0:17:13.736
We are trying to restore[br]that balance of nature

0:17:13.760,0:17:15.325
that we have upset.

0:17:15.793,0:17:16.976
Thank you.

0:17:17.000,0:17:19.720
(Applause)