Is the Tasmanian Tiger Really Extinct?

While many experts believed the last known Thilacene died at Australia's Hobart Zoos in ninety six, others ardently claimed that the animal still exists because they've spotted one or more in the wild. We spoke by email with Katherine Medlock, Honorary Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. She said the international, Australian and State definition of an extinct species is that there has been no

reliable evidence of the species for fifty years. By this definition, they are officially an extinct species. Although designated as officially extinct, it's difficult to prove that something is not there, as opposed to proving it is. There are many cases of species being rediscovered many years after supposed extinction. We also spoke via email with Rick Schwartz, an animal ambassador for

California San Diego Zoo. He explained that quote. Since the nineteen thirties, there have been a few claims that Tasmanian tigers have been seen for brief moments in the wild. However, no substantial evidence has proven they exist at this time. We also spoke via email with Neil Waters of the Thi Lacene Awareness Group of Australia, who sort of disagrees quote, do I think the animal is extinct? No, because I have seen too and been coughed slash embarked at by one.

In South Australia, there have been more than seven thousand documented sightings of Thi lacens or animals that appear to be thilocenes, but the majority of those sightings on mainland Australia. According to the signed Vick formula applied to mammals, though it is extinct and has been since ninety six, for fifty years the animal was considered rare and endangered. This fact inconveniently keeps the animal as a recent extinction rather than an ancient one. We should lose hope over and

forget about. Let's step back a bit. What exactly is a Tasmanian tiger. Schwartz explained that it's not a big cat at all. He said the name tiger most likely was given to the animal by the European settlers due to the light stripes that went from the spine down each side on the hind end of the animal. Most people agree that the Tasmanian tiger looks like a medium sized, short haired dog, with subtle stripes on its hind quarters

and the base of its tail. The tail was thick and muscular at the base, more like a kangaroo's tail than a dog's tail. The colorations were described as a light brown and yellow brown with darker brown stripes. These animals weighed about forty five to seventy pounds that's twenty to thirty kilos, with a body length of fort is or a hundred to cis with that tail adding another twenty or fifty to sixty centimes. Most stood about two feet tall or two thirds of a meter at the shoulder.

Short said, in our modern times, we usually think of marsupials as koalas and kangaroos. However, the Tasmanian tiger had a number of unique characteristics. Being a dog like medium sized carnivore that's also a marsupial, its size and features were more similar to that of a small wolf or large fox. Combine that with the striped pattern on the hind end and a thick muscular tail similar to a kangaroo,

and you've got a pretty unique animal. And Waters said, when you have a close look at the prince, we find you will see time and time again at the broad splay of the toes and the claw drag impressions from the massive fixed claws on the animals four feet. The reason they are sprayed wide and not like a dog is because th lacenes don't have webbing between their toes. Their front feet also still act similar to hands, as they can both hop like a kangaroo or run on

all fours. As a result, many of the princes appear that the front feet are literally grabbing the ground as they dig in on curves or at high speed when pursuing prey. When Europeans first colonized Australia, the Tasmanian tiger was rarely seen. The animals started to become increasingly blamed for at tax on sheep. However, so private companies and the Tasmanian government attempted to curb the population by establishing

bounties in exchange for dead Thi lacenes. Adding to their eventual extinction was the sad fact that Australia's colonization eroded the Thi lacens habitat. By the nineteen twenties, sightings of the Tasmanian tiger in the wild became extremely rare, and in nineteen thirty a farmer shot and killed the second to last known wild Tasmanian tiger. The final Thi lacene was captured in the Florentine Valley in ninety three and transferred to the Hobart Zoo on September se In six,

the animal, known as Benjamin, died in captivity. Black and white footage recorded in nineteen thirty three would become historically significant as images of the final thiala scene. In seven, the Tasmanian Animals and Birds Protection Board a later to become the National Park Service, launched a series to determine where thialacenes still might be found, Medlock said, Unfortunately, a

living animal was not discovered. The final search in this series was into the Jaine River area in western Tasmania. On this search, some Thi lacene footprints were discovered in creek bed. The original plaster casts of these prints are lodged in the Tasmanian Museum. The Tasmanian Museum doesn't receive sighting reports and we don't have the expertise to assess them. This is done by the Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment. They continue to record reported sightings and take

them seriously. Often, however, sightings, films and photographs are released to the media through the people who are reporting them rather than a government body. Over the years, there have been several instances of photographs and films purported to be Thi lacens in the wild, but none have been verified as genuine evidence of an animal. Waters however, contends that there have been dozens of credible sightings of dilocenes. He said,

actually hundreds of them too many A name. One in particular was a bus load of tourists in Western Australia back in the nineteen eighties who all saw the animal at close range in broad daylight whilst on a wildflower tour. The fact that we find headless kangaroos all over Australia is a key piece of physical evidence that these animals still persist, but nobody wants to know about it because it's always blamed on either hunters or satanists by ill

informed people who don't understand how these animals feed. Waters has been working tirelessly to raise public awareness of this animal's continued existence for the past five years, meeting dozens of witnesses and collecting thousands of statements regarding sightings of

this animal in both Tasmania and across mainland Australia. His work appears in the twenty seventeen document entry Living the Thigh Lacene Dream, which follows Waters travels throughout mainland Australia to collect evidence of predation, as well as stories of sightings from witnesses who are adamant they've seen the thi la scene both recently and historically. Today's episode was written by Wendy Bowman and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other curious topics, visit how

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