Arjun Jha
Young Naturalist · est. 2025
Vol. I · MMXXVI
Established 2025 Discipline Conservation biology Specialty De-extinction science
The Field Notebook of a Young Naturalist

Study what we lost.
Save what's left.
Bring back what we can.

The ongoing work of Arjun Jha — wildlife documentarian, extinction historian, and future conservation scientist. A long-term project in three movements.

Read the Mission Watch Field Notes
Field site North America Active research Thylacinus cynocephalus Status In progress
✦ ✦ ✦
The Three-Part Mission

A naturalist's thesis,
in three movements.

Conservation, when done seriously, is past, present, and future at once. These are the three doors of the work.

№ I
⟁

Study what we lost.

An archive of species that have vanished in the last two centuries — what took them, and the lesson each one left behind. The past is a curriculum.

Enter the archive →
№ II
◈

Save what is still here.

Field notes on the living — short films, "Animal of the Day" studies, and species profiles. The first job of a conservationist is to make people care.

Watch field notes →
№ III
✦

Bring back what we can.

An active research interest in de-extinction science — and the long pursuit of returning the Tasmanian tiger. The frontier of what conservation could become.

See the project →
Pl. I Anno 2026 Naturalist In situ Thylacinus cynocephalus SUBJECT OF FUTURE RESEARCH EXTINCT 1936 · IN RECOVERY
In his own words

"I love animals. I spend most of my waking hours researching them."

Arjun Jha is nine years old. He is a wildlife documentarian on YouTube, an extinction historian, and an aspiring conservation biologist. His stated ambition is to reduce the rate at which species are lost from the planet — and to one day see the Tasmanian tiger walk again.

This site is his ongoing record: a working catalog of what has been lost, what is being filmed and studied now, and what the next century of conservation science might recover. It will grow alongside him.

"Nature and all its creations are beautiful, and I love experiencing them up close."
From the Field Journal

Notes, in my own words.

A dated record of what I'm reading, watching, and trying to understand — kept in the tradition of the naturalists' notebooks I'm studying.

Read the Journal →
Recent Field Notes

The animal of the day, on film.

View All Notes →
The Mission

A child scientist
at the start of long work.

A statement of purpose, written for the long arc of a career that has only just begun.

Most nine-year-olds want to be a lot of things at once. Arjun Jha wants to be one thing for a very long time: someone who studies the lives of other species and protects them from disappearing.

He has been documenting wildlife on his YouTube channel Arjun's Wildlife, posting short studies of animals he is researching — a kind of public-facing field notebook. He reads scientific articles above his grade level. He draws the animals he studies. He has opinions about taxonomy.

His stated ambition, in his own words: "to reduce the rate at which species go extinct from our beautiful planet." His signature interest: the de-extinction of the thylacine, the Tasmanian tiger, lost in 1936 — a project that is, remarkably, currently underway in actual laboratories.

The thesis, in three movements

Serious conservation work has three time-horizons running simultaneously. Most efforts focus on one. Arjun's program of study addresses all three:

Movement I · The Past

Build and maintain The Archive — a deepening catalog of species lost in the last two centuries, with the specific causes and lessons each extinction taught us. Conservation history is the foundation. Patterns repeat. The species we lose next will not be lost in new ways.

Movement II · The Present

Document living species through Field Notes, the YouTube channel and species-of-the-day records. Public engagement is the front edge of conservation: legislation follows attention, funding follows interest, and species do not get saved by people who have never heard of them.

Movement III · The Future

Track and contribute to de-extinction science, with a specific focus on Thylacinus cynocephalus. The TIGRR Lab at the University of Melbourne and Colossal Biosciences are currently working on this. Being a young naturalist today means knowing that the resurrection of a 20th-century species could happen within Arjun's career.

What this site is

This site is the public-facing portion of a long-term portfolio. It will grow as Arjun's research deepens. It is designed to be:

"I would love to see the Tasmanian tiger come back to life. Nature and all its creations are beautiful, and I love experiencing them up close."

By the numbers

Species documented
100+
Active species records in working notes, with the public catalog growing each month.
Films published
Ongoing
"Animal of the Day" — short documentary studies on YouTube as Arjun's Wildlife.
Years to thesis
~ 13
An estimate. The first undergraduate research years are when this work begins in earnest.

How to engage

Researchers, educators, conservation organizations, and journalists who would like to connect — please see the Connect page. Correspondence is read and responded to by Arjun and his family.

The Field Journal

Notes from the field.

A dated record of what I'm seeing, reading, and thinking about. Kept in the tradition of the great naturalists' notebooks — but written by someone who is still learning.

✎ Volume I  ·  Begun 2026  ·  Arjun Jha, Naturalist ✎

Real scientists keep notebooks. Darwin kept one on the Beagle. Jane Goodall kept one in Gombe. E. O. Wilson kept one for sixty years. This is mine.

Entries go up when there's something worth recording — a new species I learned about, a paper I read, a paragraph I drafted, a question I haven't answered yet. Not every day. Often enough.

Use the filters below to find entries by topic. Future researchers — including the one I'll be in twenty years — should be able to track what I was thinking when.

Filter by topic

"The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add an useful plant to its culture."

— Thomas Jefferson, naturalist · in a notebook, 1800

Movement I

The Archive
of Vanished Species

A growing record of animals lost in the last two centuries — the cause of each extinction, and the specific lesson it leaves behind for the species still here.

Filter by cause
Movement III · The Signature Initiative

The Thylacine Project

An active research interest in the de-extinction of Thylacinus cynocephalus — the Tasmanian tiger, lost in 1936, and currently the subject of one of the most ambitious projects in modern molecular biology.

— LAST SEEN: HOBART ZOO, 7 SEPTEMBER 1936 —

In 2025, scientists at the TIGRR Lab in Melbourne and Colossal Biosciences announced a thylacine genome 99.9% complete — assembled to the chromosome level, including telomeres and centromeres. They have also recovered long RNA molecules from a 110-year-old preserved head. This is, by some measures, the most complete ancient genome ever produced for any species.

The project is real. It is ongoing. And it could plausibly produce a living thylacine within the next decade or two — well within the career arc of a child who is nine years old right now.

The science, as it stands

Researchers are not cloning a thylacine; ancient DNA cannot be used directly. Instead, the work proceeds in stages: sequence the thylacine genome, identify the gene differences between thylacine and its closest living relative (the fat-tailed dunnart, Sminthopsis crassicaudata), use CRISPR to edit a dunnart cell's DNA to match a thylacine's, develop the assisted reproductive technologies needed for marsupial surrogacy, and then attempt to produce a viable embryo.

Each step is hard. Each step has produced peer-reviewed progress. Each step is being published in real time.

A Project Timeline

From last specimen
to first return.

1936

The last thylacine dies.

A male thylacine, often called Benjamin in popular memory, dies at Hobart's Beaumaris Zoo on 7 September 1936 — fifty-nine days after the Tasmanian government finally extended legal protection to the species.

2008

First thylacine DNA expression.

University of Melbourne researchers, including Andrew Pask, successfully express a thylacine gene in a mouse embryo for the first time — establishing that ancient marsupial DNA can still function.

2022

Colossal × TIGRR partnership formed.

Colossal Biosciences announces a $10 million partnership with the University of Melbourne's newly-established Thylacine Integrated Genomic Restoration Research (TIGRR) Lab, led by Professor Andrew Pask.

↳ Source: Colossal Biosciences announcement
2024

Genome reconstructed at 99.9%.

Using a 110-year-old preserved thylacine head found in a cupboard at Museums Victoria, researchers produce the most complete and contiguous ancient genome of any species to date — including notoriously hard-to-assemble telomeres and centromeres.

↳ Source: Smithsonian Magazine, October 2024
2025

RNA recovered. Pask joins Colossal full-time.

Long RNA molecules are isolated from the preserved specimen — meaning scientists can begin to understand what the thylacine could smell, taste, and see. In August, Andrew Pask is appointed Chief Biology Officer of Colossal; the TIGRR Lab becomes part of "Colossal Australia."

↳ Source: Business Wire, August 2025
20??

The first thylacine returns.

No date has been promised. The work is harder than the dire wolf or woolly mammoth projects. But it is happening. And the people doing it are publishing peer-reviewed work. The future arc of this project is, plausibly, the future arc of Arjun's career.

The Honest Conversation

The scientific debate,
treated as it deserves.

Serious conservationists disagree about de-extinction. A young scientist should know both sides — and form a view that can stand up to scrutiny.

The case for

De-extinction is conservation's most ambitious frontier.

The technologies developed — ancient DNA recovery, CRISPR editing for genetic rescue, marsupial reproductive science, captive breeding infrastructure — are directly transferable to saving species that are not yet extinct. Colossal's work has already produced advances in techniques being applied to the northern white rhino and Australian native species.

And there is a moral case: humans drove the thylacine to extinction through deliberate persecution. If we have the technology to reverse a wrong we committed, the burden of proof falls on those arguing we shouldn't.

The case against

The ecosystem that contained the thylacine is gone.

Critics — including a 2025 paper in the journal Science, Technology, & Human Values — argue that de-extinction risks redirecting funding and attention away from the species that still exist. The Tasmanian ecosystem the thylacine evolved in has been transformed by 90 years of agriculture and invasive species. Bringing back the animal is not the same as bringing back what it lived in.

Others raise concerns about animal welfare in the experimental process, and about whether the marketing of de-extinction by private companies distorts conservation priorities.

The young scientist's position: both sets of arguments are worth taking seriously. The work should continue, with the criticisms held in mind. Conservation that ignores hard questions stops being conservation.

What this project means here

The Thylacine Project is not Arjun's lab. It is a public commitment to follow the science seriously, document it as it unfolds, learn the discipline it requires, and — if the trajectory holds — be part of the generation of conservation biologists who finish the work.

The records on this page will be updated as the science progresses. New papers will be summarized. Setbacks will be reported. This is, in miniature, what science journalism for a future scientist looks like.

Further reading

Movement II · The Living Catalog

Field Notes

Short documentary studies — "Animal of the Day" films — published on YouTube as Arjun's Wildlife. A growing public record of the world's species, one entry at a time.

Watch on YouTube ↗ Subscribe to the Channel
The Catalog

Every animal,
in its own short film.

All videos on YouTube ↗
Correspondence

Connect & collaborate.

For researchers, educators, conservation organizations, and journalists.

For scientists & educators

If you work in conservation biology, zoology, wildlife ecology, or de-extinction science and would like to encourage a young naturalist — a brief reply, a paper recommendation, or an invitation to a public lab tour means more than you might think.

Arjun is also available to be interviewed about his work for educational features, school programs, and youth-in-science features.

For conservation orgs

Organizations working in species conservation, public education, or wildlife media — Arjun is interested in volunteering his time and content (within age-appropriate frameworks) for causes that align with the three-pillar mission.

Partnerships, mentions, link exchanges, and co-produced content are all on the table.

  • Active interests De-extinction, marsupials, IUCN Red List
  • Aligned causes WWF · IUCN · WCS · Colossal Foundation

A note on process

This site is managed in coordination with Arjun's family. All correspondence is reviewed by an adult guardian before being passed along. Arjun does not appear in photos or videos with identifying location markers, and personal details (school, home address, full birthdate) are not published — this is a public-facing scientific record, not a personal profile.

Thank you for taking a young scientist seriously. That, at the start of a long career, is the most useful thing anyone can do.