Ihave always had a soft spot for the Tasmanian Tiger (or Tassie) because it was one of the first animals (I believe that the dodo was the first one that really struck me) that made me aware that extinction was irreversible. An animal once gone, was gone forever.
Mammoths, dinosaurs, wolly rhinos, well, they were things of the distant past but a dog-like marsupial like the Tasmanian Tiger was different, modern "civilized" humans had wiped them out (the same happened to the defensless dodos of Mauritius, and the aulk in the North Atlantic), and I found if very sad.
The Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacinus cynocephalus (dog-headed pouched-dog) was hunted to extinction by Australian shepherds of Tasmania a few decades before I was born.
At one time this meat eating marsupial had a range that spanned all of Australia and New Guinea. Though it was later confined to the island of Tasmania (hence its name of Tasmanian Tiger - and also Tasmanian wolf).
They were large dog-like creatures: 1 to 1.3 meters long (40 - 50 51 inches) plus a tail 20-35 in. long (50-65 cm). They weighed between 33 to 66 lbs. (15-30 kg). And had 15 to 20 dark stripes on their back. Their fur was yellowish-brown colored.
Unfortunately for the Tassies, dogs brought by the Aboriginal people (dingos) competed with the Thylacine in its same ecological niche, and were far more successful. Around 2,000 years ago the Thylacines became extinct on the mainland, but managed to survive on the island of Tasmania, near Southern Australia.
There were several species of Thylacines over the past 16 Million years in Australia. The Tasmanian Tiger appeared about 4 Million years ago and they were very successful predators. But being a predator was the cause of their downfall. Their predilection for mutton provoked its demise: to protect the sheep farms, the Tasmanian government paid bounties for their dead bodies from 1886 to 1909. Thousands of Tassies were killed.
By the time some action was taken to protect it, it was far too late. A few wild thylacines were captured and although the species was protected in July 1936, two months later the last survivor of the species died in the Zoo at Hobart, Tasmania.
So it is very good news that the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) has released a document describing eight sightings of Tassies (Tylacines) in Tasmania between 2016 and 2019.
Who knows, maybe the Tasmanian Tiger is still alive somewhere in the forests of Tasmania.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2019 by Austin Whittall ©
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