The Hunter raises questions about ethics

All over the planet, a new wave of exploration and exploitation is taking place.

Bioprospectors are searching for new and useful biological samples and compounds from previously unstudied animals and plants. It’s big business these days, especially for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.

It’s also controversial: who has the rights to these compounds? The Convention on Biological Diversity was established in 1993 to prevent biopiracy. Many countries also now ban the export of biological material from native species because they fear losing revenue from as-yet-undiscovered biologically important compounds.

The ethical and environmental issues surrounding bioprospecting are at the heart of a new movie – The Hunter. The film follows bounty hunter Martin David (Willem Dafoe) as he searches the Tasmanian wilderness to collect DNA samples from a thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) on behalf of a mysterious biotechnology company, Redleaf.

Thylacines were relicts from a time before Aboriginal people and the dingos they brought with them. Along with Tasmanian devils and the marsupial lion, Thylacaleo, they were once found across much of the Australian mainland. Thylacines went extinct on the mainland perhaps 2000 years ago, and there hasn’t been a confirmed sighting in Tasmania for more than 70 years.

Read more at The Conversation here.

Phylogeny based on the sequence cytochrome b. The mid-sized carnivore the Tasmanian Tiger is shown to be more closely related to the vegetarian Kangaroo, and bandicoots and possums, than to its ecological niche and functional equivalents the dog/wolf family. As well, the sequence of the vegetarian Panda is more similar to carnivorous Bears than to other herbivorous animals.

Actor Willem Dafoe weighs into Thylacine debate

Actor Willem Dafoe has weighed into the Tasmanian Tiger debate - is it or isn't it?

In his latest film, The Hunter, Dafoe plays a mercenary sent to Tasmania by a pharmaceutical company to hunt for the last surviving Tasmanian Tiger.

In reality, the 'tiger' was hunted to extinction by Australian settlers, with the last captive specimen dying at Hobart Zoo in 1936. Since that time there has been thousands of unconfirmed reports of sightings, and Dafoe for one remains optimistic about the Thylacine's survival.

"I feel a little like a child, but I like to think there is and when you see all that wilderness you think, it's possible," he said. "It's a little bit like I remember when I'd go fishing as a kid, I'd look out at the water and I would envision the big fish that I was going to catch."

Director Daniel Nettheim says he hopes the next witness has their mobile phone ready.

"Science tells us that really the animal couldn't have survived up to present day, because it lacked the critical mass for breeding," he said. "But so many people on the island believe in it, and so many people claim to have seen it, there is this kind of collective need for it to still exist."

Tassie Tiger thriller wraps shoot in Tasmania

Filming on the psychological thriller The Hunter, starring Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill and Frances O'Connor, has just finished for the main scenes on a hill outside Deloraine, half an hour west of Launceston. Scenes were shot on location earlier on Mount Wellington.

Dafoe, a dual Academy Award nominee, plays a mercenary sent from Europe to hunt the last Tasmanian tiger in Daniel Nettheim's adaptation of Julia Leigh's popular novel.

Early production images from filming in Maydena, the Florentine Valley and the Central Plateau show the move will reward the film handsomely -- and Hobart was even able to be substituted for Antwerp in some scenes.

Dafoe was a relaxed presence on a tight set that was occasionally populated by extras playing themselves -- forest-living environmentalists.

"I like very much films where you're every day on the set; it has a really good benefit because you relax and you feel very little pressure to interpret," he said.

"You feel much more comfortable just being present and receiving the story, in a sense. The story can take you some place -- you don't have to force it."

The Hunter, due for release late next year, has solid international prospects with such a cast, which includes Dan Wyllie, Callan Mulvey and rising star Morgana Davies. It is the strongest project among several recent Tasmanian films.

Tassie Tiger thriller coming Down Under

A feature film starring some big Hollywood names will be shot in Tasmania later this year.

The Hunter is billed as a psychological thriller.

Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe will play the lead: a mercenary sent to find the last Tasmanian tiger.

Alongside him will be another big name, Sam Neill, who has starred in a number of Hollywood blockbusters including Jurassic Park.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/23/2962857.htm