Cloned Tigers: The Extinction and De-Extinction of the Thylacine as a Lens for Anthropocentrism

Abstract

Thylacines (colloquially known as tasmanian tigers/wolves) were dog-like marsupials hunted to extinction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The events leading to their extinction, in addition to instilling feelings of guilt, loss, and longing, have given thinkers a fascinating insight into colonialism, environmental ethics, social framing, and most notably, anthropocentrism, the belief that value is human-centered and that all other beings are means to human ends. Anthropocentrism is the worldview that has characterized a massive number of ecological extinctions. Since the turn of the 21st century, thylacines have been among the prime candidates for de-extinction, the name given to cloning technologies that strive to protect the future of conservation by reviving extinct species. through surrogate hosts. It is portrayed as a marvelous scientific advancement capable of righting the wrongs of extinction. This paper aims to prove that de-extinction practices are clear evidence for the persistence of anthropocentrism, the same anthropocentrism that expedited the thylacine’s rapid extinction in the first place. I contend that the factors which pushed the thylacine to extinction – economic incentives and aesthetic interests – are directly comparable to those characterizing their contemporary presence in de-extinction efforts. To prove this, I discuss how economic incentives are just as pertinent to thylacine discourse now as they were in the 19th and 20th centuries, and that the hopeful, aesthetic imagery and rhetorical narratives of de-extinction rhetoric reflect the same intentionality and poor reasoning as the fear mongering, anti-thylacine rhetoric from the time of their existence. 

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