The body fur looked light grey or brownish in colour, with dark stripes situated about mid-way on the spine extending down towards the back legs, stopping about the rump. ", "February 2006, Shara Boulevard, North Ocean Shores; Rayleen saw a thylacine-like animal crossing the road. I had a magnificent view of it head on face to face sitting in the middle of the road not much more than 15 feet away. Don was thinking that it looked like a thylacine without stripes & then everyone began asking each other what it was & wondering whether it was a Tasmanian Tiger. I know that because I have seen two," he writes. Im dead-set sure the damn thing was not a fox, dingo or dog and Im positive about the zebra-like stripes down the back. Copyright 2023 The Recently Extinct Plants and Animals Database. The head looked Alsatian-like but had shorter, thicker ears than a greyhound. The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, is one of Australia's most iconic species. "2nd November 2006, 9 pm, Thursday, New Brighton; Rob was fishing at Casons Road, New Brighton, when they saw an unusual animal. He worked for 5 years with Standard Saw Mills of Lismore as a logger and often saw dingos. I walked to the spot were the animal had been and found a small dead wombat "gutted", a very strange sight for the plains. ", "20th August, 2008, Coast Road between Lennox Head and Suffolk Park; David Hall emailed the ABC North Coast Radio station to describe his sighting. We sighted it again a couple of days later from a distance, and finally on the third occasion I was fortunate enough to get an excellent view of it. ", "In 1986 the Gilroys were contacted by Mrs Patricia Marson, to say that, in October 1972, she was on a camping trip with the Sydney Bushwalkers Club at Mount Wilson, which like nearby Mount Irvine, overlooks the Wollemi National Park/Wollangambe Wilderness country, from out of which tigers have been known to emerge to be seen hereabouts and at nearby Bilpin. Yet how did the animal get where it was seen? The species was declared extinct in 1986. It's been more than 80 years since the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, is believed to have gone extinct, but an enduring belief remains that the large carnivore still roams the state. Footage of the last Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Australia, from 1933. newspaper articles, books, CD's etc.). I was driving south about 20 min into a 9 hr drive home to Melbourne when a 'thing' with the strangest walk/run burst from the scrub straight across the road, in front of me & a White landcruiser ute travelling the other way. The most recent time, probably about 12 or 18 months ago, my husband was on his own and saw it quite clearly, only a few metres away. They noticed that another passing motorist also saw it. In 1938, a Thylacine was said to be shot at Mawbanna. I think it was young about 12-13 inches from the ground to the top of its back.I didn't see any stripes and I don't think it had any but it was obviously a marsupial. Gary is a one of the great people in this area knowing wildlife and ummm and so I was talking to him about it. The date was Tuesday 22nd February 1972 at 10.15pm, when we were forced to stop, at the turnoff to Evans Lookout, on the Great Western Highway just south of Blackheath township. (2017). Most of them were fleeting glimpses of this Will-o-the Wisp". We then mentioned it in passing to the bus driver on the way back to the airport and he said there had been some sightings of thylacine-like animals in the area over the years that he had heard of. Is the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus) extinct on the Australian mainland? "In May 1984 I received a letter from a Mrs Julie Tonurist, a scientist, who informed me that, back in 1974, she lived at Springwood and travelled home from work on the FISH [a former Blue Mountains train service]. He describes the animal as "as long as a Labrador with a thin tail pointing backwards". We had all agreed that it was too large for a feral cat, and too odd in shape as well, and that was certainly true in a number of respects. The headlights provided us with a good look at the creature. 7:30pm when in front of me on the side of the road, eating a dead kangaroo, was a medium/large long, slender dog shaped animal with a kangaroo-style tail. Tasmanian tiger sightings: 'I represent 3,000 people who have been told theyre nuts'. (2017). All of these sightings occurred in a small valley we were crossing during this period of the survey, and on this final occassion I happened to be some distance from the others in the party, setting up some wires, when the others accidentally spooked the creature from a spot nearby where it had apparently been hiding not realizing where I was it came tearing straight at me through the salt bush and blue bush and only veered away at the last minute when it sighted me. ", Source:https://www.thylacineawarenessgroupofaustralia.com.au/read-tagoa-witness-sighting-reports.htm, Please consider purchasing or sharing my new Kindle eBook on the current biodiversity crisis, to help raise funds for this website: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09P8PQ8N2/, A free Kindle eReader app can be downloaded for PC and Mac users: https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/browse.html%3Fnode=8498354051&ref=kcp_fd_hz. From the back cover: "..Tiger tales is full of great yarns and larger-than-life, country-hewn Aussie characters ..(the book) showcases 'tiger hunter' Col Bailey's favourite Tassie tiger stories, gleaned from his own research and experiences, from mysterious sightings, and from interviews with old fur-trappers . I showed him a photo on-line, and he said "That's it. However, around 2,000 years ago, it became confined to the small island state of Tasmania, which is why it became known as the Tassie Tiger. ", Source:http://www.tasmanian-tiger.com/guestbook.html, "In 1977 Mike said he saw a similar animal in Hartley Valley around 9pm one evening while driving to work. Two Tasmanian tigers in captivity at the Hobart Zoo. It was probably heading for the nearby Grose Valley, he said.". ", "2004, Clothiers Creek Road, Cabarita; Joslyn, of Kingscliff, saw a thylacine on Clothiers Creek Road at 9.30 am as she was coming into Cabarita. My daughter did not know about thylacines before the sighting. As such it generally moved at a slow pace. 'Tiger' now in baby mystery. 216 pp. Newcastle Herald, 8 March. A tassie tiger hunter said he has 'irrefutable proof Tasmanian tiger is not extinct He released three images, one of which he claims is solid proof they're alive The images show a small. It was greyhound in size, covered in a dirty golden-brown short fur with no distinct stripes and a long tail that sloped down to the ground and back up again. These sightings do not include the most recent sightings of the last five to ten years. Had it fou, region, keeping to the water catchment scrub into, seen in? There is a lot of bush and a lot of cover and I think it's living quite comfortably there. He described the specimen as funny looking with a big long tail and stumpy ears. A woman hounded out of Byron Bay for her reporting to have seen a thylacine. ", "In January, 1983, a group of hikers were camped on a mountainside when they were awoken by strange cries from the nearby forest. She stated No stripes, but a distinctly wild animal, reddish brown short hair, above knee-high. The stripes appeared to extend from the nape of the neck, running barrel-wise down its back to the rump of its long tail. It emerged from the vegetation 70m ahead, running across the road, travelling north and then stopped to watch his approach. It was the size of a small dingo but with an elongated, slim body and the hind quarters was more prominent. Yet, when I went to the Lithgow Police Station to report my sighting, all they did was laugh at me and said I was crazy", Author?. Yet how did the animal get where it was seen? I did report it at the time my husband saw it, to an on-line group or organisation. This was apparently the meal of the animal I had just seen. He said when they stopped it ran out onto the road behind them and froze for a moment also looking at them before dashing off into the forest. It was dog-like and about the size of a full-grown Alsatian, with fawn-coloured short body hair and a row of blackish body stripes extending barrel-wise from mid-back to tail rump. (Image credit: National Film and . We have been troubled by irresponsible dog owners whose pets have eaten our free range chooks (now all well fenced) so actually got out of the car to photograph the animal but it calmly loped off and it was too dark to get a photo. "It's not impossible but it gets less and less likely as time goes by.". It had its tail out straight and it seems like the tail is very tense. The first day we spooked it as we drove by a sheep carcass, which it seemed it was feeding on. Australasian Post, 31 January. By the 1920s, sightings of the Tasmanian tiger in the wild had become extremely rare and in 1930, a farmer from Mawbanna named Wilf Batty shot and killed the last known wild Tasmanian tiger. He believes about 200 Tasmanian tigers exist in three separate groups on the island, 100 in the south-west, 70 in the north-west and 30 in the north-east. What did I see:* It was the size of medium to large dog* It moved like NOTHING else I had ever seen before. It was obvious that the animal had seen/smelt/heard or sensed my presence and simply vanished. ", "2005, New Brighton; Gary and Sharmaine observed a thylacine-like animal with a striped rump. Mr Pereira dispatched the casts along with the teeth and blood samples to university zoologists in Sydney, but received little response, other than the explanation that the creature was probably a domestic dog. It was unconcerned by his approaching car and he was able to get a close look at it. In Tasmania, the Thylacine was most predominant along the north and east coast, and in the midland plains region. "Mr Turner told us that, in 1973, he was driving along the Great Western Highway from Katoomba to Blackheath late one night when, near the [now demolished] Katoomba Piggery at Bathurst Road, and opposite the railway lines bordering the water catchment, he saw in his headlights what he was certain was a Thylacine, as it ran from the railway lines across the highway in front of his car, heading in the direction of the Megalong Valley. This time it was coming down the slope from the right, jumped down the bank onto the road & continued down the slope as if it regularly used the same animal track. 13 May 1930 - Last thylacine killed in the wild. I did find a not too well-preserved long heel embedded in moist soil. The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, was a marsupial an animal that keeps its young in a pouch, like a kangaroo. Newcastle Herald, 8 March. Standing on the road, it stayed for about 40 seconds until Scott was within 40 m of it. He described it as "clear as a day". Furthermore, diseases were introduced which had a significant impact on the Tasmanian tigers population. It is almost legendary in its native land, and although purportedly extinct, there have been numerous sightings, photographs, and video footage put forward over the years that . He informed me that on the previous night, something had visited his farm [where he grew apples and raised poultry], leaving paw prints in mud around his dam, situated amid dense bush with a gully below it to the north, which led down into the Kanimbla Valley. Its fur was a tan colour, and the body stripes were blacky-brown. ", "Early 2008 late 2007, Repentance Creek Rd at the Minyon Falls turnoff. By Cameron Baud and Bryce Luff / VIC News. Join the conversation, you are commenting as. More like a retching possum and it was surprisingly loud. 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