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GENERAL ENGLISH · BREAKING NEWS · ADVANCED (C1-C2)

SCIENTISTS TO
RESURRECT
TASMANIAN TIGER

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1 Warm up
Read the description of Marsupials and discuss the questions in pairs or small groups.

"Marsupials are a group of animals that carry their young in a special

pocket of skin, called a pouch."

1. How many marsupials can you think of?

2. Can you name any animals that have become extinct in the last 500 years?
3. If human beings can prevent animals from becoming extinct, should they do so?
4. Do you think it’s a good idea to bring extinct animals back to life? What are some pros and cons
of doing this?
5. Can you think of any films about resurrecting extinct animals?

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2 Vocabulary focus

Part A: Match words with the correct definitions.

1. apex (n) a. money given as a reward

2. specimen (n) b. to walk or travel around an area without any definite aim or
direction
3. muzzle (n) c. a thing, person or situation that is annoying or causes trouble or
problems
4. bounty (n) d. a single example of something, especially an animal or a plant

5. roam (v) e. the top or highest point of something

6. nuisance (n) f. the nose and mouth of an animal, especially a dog or a horse

Part B: Complete the sentences with the words from Part A. You may need to change the form of the
word.

1. In some countries, rabbits are considered to be a .

2. Our garden contains a of a very rare flower, which was quite difficult to find.

3. Many people prefer to eat meat from animals that have been allowed to around
farmland, rather than living in cages for their whole lives.

4. The practice of paying to hunters in order to control animal population is, thankfully,
much rarer these days.

5. When a dog gets older, the fur on its often turns grey

6. There’s a metal star at the of the roof of our house. I’m not sure why, or who
installed it, but it makes the building a little more interesting to look at.

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3 Listening for specific information

Listen to the report. Match the numbers and dates mentioned with the things they relate to.

1930 1936 1980s 2184 3000 5 million 6

a. the amount (in dollars) that was donated to the University of Melbourne
earlier in the year
b. the number of years within which Colossal hopes to produce mammoth
calves
c. when the last known Tasmanian tiger died in a zoo

d. when the Tasmanian tiger was officially declared extinct

e. the number of years in the past in which the thylacine became extinct in
mainland Australia
f. the number of bounties paid out by the Tasmanian government for dead
thylacines
g. when the last Tasmanian tiger to be killed in the wild was shot by a farmer

Glossary
• fat-tailed dunnart: a mouse-like marsupial that is widespread across Australia.

• gene-sequencing: the process of identifying the order in which a set of genes or parts of
molecules are arranged

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4 Listening comprehension
Listen to the report again. Answer the questions true (T), false (F) or not given (NG). Give reasons.

1. Australian and American scientists are competing to see who can bring the Tasmanian tiger back
from extinction first.

2. A company based in Texas plans to "de-extinct" mammoths as well as thylacines.

3. The thylacine was, at one point, at the top of the food chain in Australia.

4. The last known Tasmanian tiger was well cared for.

5. According to some, thylacines became extinct in mainland Australia due to human activity.

6. The Tasmanian tiger had a head similar to a tiger and the fur of a wolf.

7. The creatures were hunted because they were seen as a nuisance.

8. The plan to de-extinct the thylacine will result in an exact copy of the creature that died out in the
1930s.

5 Reading: general vocabulary

Part A: Match the words and phrases in bold with the correct definitions.

Group 1

1. My uncle was a rather portly man – he enjoyed his food. (adv.)

2. The last time I saw my parrot, he was flying out of the window, wings fluttering a few times before
he became a dot in the sky. (v)

3. The callousness of the government during the pandemic led to widespread protests. (n)

4. Some species have been completely eradicated by human interference. (v)

5. Farmers have voiced their anger at plans to reinsert the brown bear into the wild. (v)

a. rather fat

b. place something back into its previous position

c. behaviour that shows no care for other people’s feelings, pain or problems

d. move lightly or quickly; to make something move in this way

e. destroy or get rid of something completely

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Group 2

1. Scientific endeavours are often boosted by press coverage. (n)

2. The fires cut swathes through the woods, leaving nothing but ash in their wake. (n)

3. Demonstrations against fracking are taking place in many country villages this weekend. (n)

4. Failure in your exams this week does not preclude the possibility of passing them next year. (v)

5. The king hired a group of knights to slay the dragon. (v)

a. an attempt to do something, especially something new or difficult

b. kill in a violent way

c. large pieces or area of something

d. prevent something from happening or somebody from doing something; to make something impossible

e. the process of forcing liquid at high pressure into rocks, deep holes in the ground etc. in order to
force open existing cracks and take out oil or gas

Part B: Complete the text below with the words and phrases from the above exercise. You may need
to change the tense of the word or phrase.

"We’re not going to stand by and let them destroy our planet," Lawrence said, his comments
1
attracting cheers from the protestors. Jack Lawrence, a man in his late 50s,
was one of many giving speeches that morning, as we huddled together with our banners in
2
the rain. We were demonstrating against , a process that cracks open rocks
3
in order to flush out fossil fuels. So far, of trees have been cut down to
4
make way for the new technology, wild animals are in danger of being by
5
machines, and entire species of plants native to the region have been . In truth,
we managed to get the activity banned once before, but now the government is considering
6
overturning the ban. The giant metal drills are to be into the ground, and
the nightmare will begin again. That’s why we were out there that day in the rain, sharing
our stories and making noise. I told the crowd how I remember being woken up by the house
7
shaking when the drilling first started. I thought it was an earthquake – I saw
wings through the window as birds fled, and heard the panicked barking of dogs as the ground
8
shook. I remember being amazed by the of it, realising that our lives, and
the lives of the animals around us, meant nothing if there was money to be made. Of course,
9
this latest method of generating energy is just one of many human that have
10
damaged the natural world. Creating energy should not protecting life. If
we can’t take care of the world, perhaps we deserve to live in the dark.

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Discuss these questions in pairs.

1. Can you think of any animal or plant species that have been eradicated by man?
2. Is fracking banned in your country? Do you think it should be banned?
3. Are there any ongoing scientific endeavours that you find exciting?
4. Has your country’s government been accused of callousness during the pandemic?
5. Are there any wild animals that used to live in your country that have been reinserted into the
environment?
6. Should companies that cut swathes through forests for profit be held accountable for their actions?
7. Do you think that focusing on bringing extinct animals back precludes endangered animals from
being helped? Should we do both?

6 Reading
You are going to read a text about the age of extinction. Scan the text quickly and match the paragraph
with the correct heading. One heading cannot be matched to any of the paragraphs in the text and
should be marked ‘Not given’.

Heading Paragraph (1/2/3/4/5/Not Given)

(a) The challenges of the process

(b) A case study

(c) The return of the dinosaur

(d) Changing our perception

(e) Good intentions?

(f) The era of extinction

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The age of extinction

Should we bring long-dead creatures back to life?

1.

The dodo wasn’t meant to survive. A portly, flightless bird endemic to the island of Mauritius, the dodo’s fate was
sealed the moment ships appeared on the horizon, their fluttering sails spelling doom for the helpless creature.
After the Dutch empire settled on the island in 1598, the dodo became extinct within one hundred years. The
birds proved easy to catch for human hunters; they hadn’t developed a fear of man, living as they did in isolation.
Aside from being hunted, dodos had to contend with animals brought onto the island by sailors, such as pigs, dogs
and rats, and the destruction of their natural habitat. Although we succeeded in eradicating the dodo, this strange
bird would live on in the collective imagination: a symbol of mankind’s callousness towards the natural world.

2.

We are, according to some, living in the Anthropocene epoch, a geological era that began when humans started to
affect the world around them, burrowing into the ground or cutting swathes through forests. Were we to become
extinct ourselves, traces of our mark on the planet would be detectable to sentient beings from the far future.
Proposed starting dates for the epoch roughly coincide with the sixth mass extinction, an ongoing destruction of
animals, plants, fungi and bacteria. Although extinction is a normal part of evolution, and many species faded from
the planet before humans first appeared, the current rate of extinction is estimated to be between one hundred
to one thousand times higher than natural background extinction levels.

3.

In response, we seem to be preoccupied with our past crimes against nature, out of a sense of guilt, perhaps, with
animals such as the thylacine and woolly mammoth targeted for recreation. These projects have begun to attract
wealthy investors; some pouring eye-watering sums into the de-extinction of species we exterminated years ago.
This may seem like a noble goal, and the scientific advancements that are sure to follow such a pursuit could well
help to bring future species back from the brink, but the world in which we are currently living in may not be
best suited to the reappearance of long-dead creatures. With ecosystems around the world under threat due to
fracking, mining, global warming, overfishing and industrial farming, there may not be much of a habitat to reinsert
the thylacine into.

4.

Advocates of de-extinction projects may, rightly, point out that we can focus on more than one thing at once.
Just as medical research can be conducted into several different diseases by different teams, endeavours to bring
animals back from extinction do not preclude efforts to conserve existing species. However, there are a variety
of problems that scientists striving to resurrect mammoths and Tasmanian tigers must contend with, not least the
struggle to patch up DNA with that of other animals. With no way to recreate the entire genome of the mammoth
itself, scientists are, instead, attempting to birth a hybrid elephant in an artificial womb. This proposed creature
would be neither mammoth nor elephant, leading to additional ethical concerns: if the animal is not a natural
creature, and has been created by a corporation propped up by investors, will somebody end up owning an entire
species?

5.

Ethical considerations often fall in line with worries about cloning, which may stem from religious preoccupations
with the idea of "Man playing God". More contemporary issues that could arise from de-extinction programmes
include the problem of how, where and when to reintroduce animals such as the thylacine, a predator, into a
natural environment. How does an animal that has been missing for almost a century fit back into a food chain
that has long since adapted to its absence? Initially, of course, revived creatures would be kept in reserves, and

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there may be pressure to keep them there. Could future zoos and safari parks be populated by formerly extinct
beasts, slain by man and brought back to life to entertain him? Perhaps, before we attempt to address the sins of
our fathers, we should change the way we see the natural world. As much as we might rebel against it, we are
part of the Earth, just one link in a vast chain of delicate ecosystems. If we don’t alter our path, if we continue to
take and burn and destroy, we will be joining the dodo on the list of creatures that once were.

Sources: bbc.com, theguardian.com, cnn.com, theconversation.com

Glossary

endemic: describing something, such as a species of animal or plant that is only found in a particular
country or location

7 Reading comprehension

Read the article again. Complete the sentences with between ONE to THREE words from the article.

1. As soon as the first ships arrived, the dodo’s .

2. As if being hunted by humans or attacked by the animals they brought with them wasn’t bad
enough, the dodo’s was destroyed by the newcomers.

3. The Anthropocene epoch can be defined as the point at which humans began to
the world around them.

4. The rate of extinction is, currently, believed to be vastly higher than natural
extinction levels.

5. Scientists may have begun de-extinction projects out of a .

6. With the natural world under attack, the reintroduction of the thylacine may be challenging, as
there might not be much of a habitat left for the animal to .

7. Some have pointed out that attempts to de-extinct creatures such as the thylacine do not preclude
to save endangered species.

8. With the mammoth revival project relying on DNA from other animals, the end result will be more
of a than a woolly mammoth.

9. Slotting the thylacine back into a that has adapted to the predator’s
disappearance could be challenging.

10. Despite our attempts to our planet, it is worth remembering that

we are a part of it.

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8 Post-reading: scanning for vocabulary

Look back at the text on page seven. Quickly read paragraphs 1 - 4 and find words which mean the
same as the following.

1. to have to deal with a problem or with a difficult situation or person (phr. v,

para. 1)
2. relating to the current age, viewed as the period during which human activity
has had the greatest influence on climate and the environment (adj., para. 2)
3. to take place at the same time as something else (v, para. 2)

4. so high or extreme that it is difficult or painful to think about it (adj., para. 3)

5. to kill all the members of a group of people or animals (v, para. 3)

6. to bring a dead person or animal back to life (v, para. 4)

7. the complete set of genes in a cell or living thing (n, para. 4)

8. the organ in women and female animals in which babies or young animals
develop before they are born (n, para. 4)

9 Talking point

In pairs or small groups, discuss the following questions.

1. Do you think that scientists will succeed in bringing back the Tasmanian tiger?
2. Do you believe that those involved with the project feel guilty about the past, or are they more
concerned with the publicity and fame that success would bring?
3. If you could bring one extinct animal back to life, which one would you choose and why?
4. Could bringing animals back from extinction lead to new problems, as with the rabbit crisis in
Australia?
5. From the animal’s point of view, would it be ethical to revive an extinct creature?
6. How can we prevent endangered species from becoming extinct?

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10 Extended activity: useful expressions

From the context of each sentence, complete the definitions of the expressions below by filling in the
gaps with the correct words from the list. There are more words than needed.

disaster / flood / failure / fun / thrive / future / past

(1) His fate was sealed when photographs →His was decided.
of the party were leaked to the press.

(2) She brought the company back from →It would have been a for
the brink, saving thousands of jobs. many colleagues had she not saved the
company.

(3) The war spelt doom for the recovering →The war will lead to the
economy. of the economy.

Complete the sentences with the correct expression from above.

1. After I started drinking heavily, my sister , providing me with much-needed

support.

2. The weather forecast for our picnic plans.

3. My brother’s as soon as he agreed to help the struggling company.

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Transcripts

3. Listening for specific information

Narrator: A new project has been launched to bring the Tasmanian tiger, a marsupial that died out
in the 1930s, back from extinction.

Narrator: The project is a collaboration between Australian and American scientists, and follows a
$5 million funding package donated to the University of Melbourne earlier in the year. The
university has now partnered with Colossal, a biotech firm based in Texas that calls itself
a “de-extinction” company.

Narrator: Colossal has previously been in the headlines for its plans to produce mammoth calves
within six years, and Ben Lamm, the company’s co-founder, has stated that the Tasmanian
tiger may well be the first animal that humans manage to "de-extinct".

Narrator: The Tasmanian tiger, also known as a thylacine, was Australia’s only marsupial apex
predator. The last known specimen died in a zoo in 1936, amid reports of neglect.

Narrator: Although some still believe wild thylacines may still exist in Tasmania, the species was
officially declared extinct in the 1980s. The marsupial was previously widespread in the
Australian mainland, becoming endemic to the island of Tasmania around 3000 years ago.

Narrator: Settlers in Tasmania were initially confused upon encountering the animal, which had
striped black-on-brown fur, like a tiger, but a long muzzle similar to a wolf. Later, the
creatures were seen as a nuisance, and a bounty was offered in the late 19th century.

Narrator: In total, the Tasmanian government paid out 2,184 bounties for dead thylacines. The last
known Tasmanian tiger to be killed in the wild was shot by a farmer in 1930. Scientists
hope to bring these strange creatures back using a combination of gene-sequencing and
donor DNA from a close relative, the fat-tailed dunnart.

Narrator: If the de-extinction project is successful, the Tasmanian tiger will be able to roam free on
private land, with the eventual aim of reintroducing the species to the wild.

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Key

1. Warm up

5 mins.
Tell the students they will be listening to a report about the planned de-extinction of the Tasmanian tiger, and
reading an article in which four members of the public react to the news story. The discussion activity is suitable
for pairs or small groups. You may wish to elicit answers for the first question as a class activity.

2. Vocabulary focus

5 mins.
Ask students to match the words with the correct definitions. For the second part, students should fill in the gaps
in the sentences in pairs or individually. Ensure students know how to pronounce target vocabulary.

1. → e. 2. → d. 3. → f. 4. → a. 5. → b. 6. → c.
Part B

1. nuisance 2. specimen 3. roam

4. bounties 5. muzzle 6. apex

3. Listening for specific information

5 mins.
Individually or in pairs, ask students to listen to the report and match the numbers and dates they hear mentioned
with the correct answer.

a. 5 million b. 6 c. 1936 d. 1980s e. 3000 f. 2184 g. 1930

4. Listening comprehension

5 mins.
Students should answer the questions true, false or not given.

1. False. Scientists from Australia and the US are collaborating to bring the animal back.
2. True. Colossal, a Texas-based company, is planning to bring both mammoths and Tasmanian tigers back.
3. True. The thylacine was Australia’s only marsupial apex predator.
4. False. There were reports of neglect when the animal died in a zoo.
5. Not given. The report doesn’t mention the reasons for the creature becoming extinct in the mainland.
6. False. The animal’s head was more wolf-like, with a long muzzle, but its fur was striped black-on-brown, like a
tiger.
7. True. "...the creatures were seen as a nuisance, and a bounty was offered..."
8. False. The project will be dependent on donor DNA from a close relative.

5. Reading: general vocabulary

10 mins.
Students should match the words in bold with the correct definitions. Ensure students know how to pronounce
target vocabulary.

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For Part B, students should read through the short dialogue and choose the most suitable word for each space.
Students may need to change the form of the word. For the discussion activity, students can complete the task in
pairs or groups.

Note: a dodo is a large bird that could not fly and that is now extinct
Part A
Group 1

1. → a. 2. → d. 3. → c. 4. → e. 5. → b.
Group 2

1. → a. 2. → c. 3. → e. 4. → d. 5. → b.
Part B

1. portly
2. fracking
3. swathes
4. slain
5. eradicated
6. reinserted
7. fluttering
8. callousness
9. endeavours
10. preclude

6. Reading

5 mins.
Ask students to skim through the text quickly to match the profession to the correct speakers. You may want to
do this as a strictly-timed exercise.

1. A case study
2. The era of extinction
3. Good intentions?
4. The challenges of the process
5. Changing our perception
Sources:
www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-62568427
www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2022/aug/21/resurrecting-the-tasmanian-tiger-may-be-a-noble-
idea-but-what-about-preserving-existing-species
www.cnn.com/2022/08/16/world/tasmanian-tiger-thylacine-deextinction-scn/index.html
theconversation.com/should-we-bring-back-the-thylacine-we-asked-5-experts-188894

7. Reading comprehension

10 mins.

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Students should complete the task individually or in pairs. Students should read the article again, and complete
the sentences with between one to three words from the text itself.

1. fate was sealed 2. natural habitat

3. affect 4. background
5. sense of guilt 6. live in
7. efforts 8. hybrid elephant
9. food chain 10. rebel against

8. Post-reading: scanning for vocabulary

10 mins.
Ask students to complete the definitions of the target vocabulary items with the correct words from the list.

1. contend with 2. Anthropocene

3. coincide 4. eye-watering
5. exterminate 6. resurrect
7. genome 8. womb

9. Talking point

10 mins.
Ask students to discuss the questions in pairs or small groups.

10. Extended activity: useful expressions

10 mins.
Ask students to complete the definitions of the expressions with the correct words from the list.
Sentences

future
disaster
failure
Gaps

1. brought me back from the brink

2. spelt doom
3. fate was sealed

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