Scientists lobby for reserve for future Tasmanian tiger clone

Success will pave way for reviving extinct species

Australian scientists want to create a wildlife reserve, for an extinct animal in a wilderness area that is being logged, to allow a Lazarus-like comeback for the Tasmanian tiger.

The Tasmanian government has called the cloning project science fiction. Driven to extinction in 1936, biologists want to clone the thylacine and let it live in the Styx Valley, a wilderness area 70km west of Hobart.

Mike Archer, dean of science at the University of New South Wales, who since 2000 has led efforts to clone the Tasmanian tiger, believes a thylacine could be cloned within 10 years.

He wants the Tasmanian government to create a reserve in the Styx Valley, two hours' drive west of Hobart, which is logged, with most of the timber exported to Japan to be made into wood chips.

'The Styx is where the thylacine made its last stand before being hunted to extinction,' Professor 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.'

The area is outside the boundaries of the protected forests inside the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, with loggers clearing up to 600 hectares a year.