Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbam here. You've no doubt heard of the Tasmanian
Speaker 1: Devil or seen an animated version the Whirling Dervish and
Speaker 1: Looney Tunes cartoons. But what about the Tasmanian tiger. It's
Speaker 1: actually not even a tiger at all, instead a marsupial
Speaker 1: known as the Thila scene and it's thought to have
Speaker 1: gone extinct almost a hundred years ago. But did it really?
Speaker 1: While many experts believed the last known Thilacene died at
Speaker 1: Australia's Hobart Zoos in ninety six, others ardently claimed that
Speaker 1: the animal still exists because they've spotted one or more
Speaker 1: in the wild. We spoke by email with Katherine Medlock,
Speaker 1: Honorary Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and
Speaker 1: Art Gallery. She said the international, Australian and State definition
Speaker 1: of an extinct species is that there has been no
Speaker 1: reliable evidence of the species for fifty years. By this definition,
Speaker 1: they are officially an extinct species. Although designated as officially extinct,
Speaker 1: it's difficult to prove that something is not there, as
Speaker 1: opposed to proving it is. There are many cases of
Speaker 1: species being rediscovered many years after supposed extinction. We also
Speaker 1: spoke via email with Rick Schwartz, an animal ambassador for
Speaker 1: California San Diego Zoo. He explained that quote. Since the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, there have been a few claims that Tasmanian
Speaker 1: tigers have been seen for brief moments in the wild. However,
Speaker 1: no substantial evidence has proven they exist at this time.
Speaker 1: We also spoke via email with Neil Waters of the
Speaker 1: Thi Lacene Awareness Group of Australia, who sort of disagrees quote,
Speaker 1: do I think the animal is extinct? No, because I
Speaker 1: have seen too and been coughed slash embarked at by one.
Speaker 1: In South Australia, there have been more than seven thousand
Speaker 1: documented sightings of Thi lacens or animals that appear to
Speaker 1: be thilocenes, but the majority of those sightings on mainland Australia.
Speaker 1: According to the signed Vick formula applied to mammals, though
Speaker 1: it is extinct and has been since ninety six, for
Speaker 1: fifty years the animal was considered rare and endangered. This
Speaker 1: fact inconveniently keeps the animal as a recent extinction rather
Speaker 1: than an ancient one. We should lose hope over and
Speaker 1: forget about. Let's step back a bit. What exactly is
Speaker 1: a Tasmanian tiger. Schwartz explained that it's not a big
Speaker 1: cat at all. He said the name tiger most likely
Speaker 1: was given to the animal by the European settlers due
Speaker 1: to the light stripes that went from the spine down
Speaker 1: each side on the hind end of the animal. Most
Speaker 1: people agree that the Tasmanian tiger looks like a medium sized,
Speaker 1: short haired dog, with subtle stripes on its hind quarters
Speaker 1: and the base of its tail. The tail was thick
Speaker 1: and muscular at the base, more like a kangaroo's tail
Speaker 1: than a dog's tail. The colorations were described as a
Speaker 1: light brown and yellow brown with darker brown stripes. These
Speaker 1: animals weighed about forty five to seventy pounds that's twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty kilos, with a body length of fort is
Speaker 1: or a hundred to cis with that tail adding another
Speaker 1: twenty or fifty to sixty centimes. Most stood about two
Speaker 1: feet tall or two thirds of a meter at the shoulder.
Speaker 1: Short said, in our modern times, we usually think of
Speaker 1: marsupials as koalas and kangaroos. However, the Tasmanian tiger had
Speaker 1: a number of unique characteristics. Being a dog like medium
Speaker 1: sized carnivore that's also a marsupial, its size and features
Speaker 1: were more similar to that of a small wolf or
Speaker 1: large fox. Combine that with the striped pattern on the
Speaker 1: hind end and a thick muscular tail similar to a kangaroo,
Speaker 1: and you've got a pretty unique animal. And Waters said,
Speaker 1: when you have a close look at the prince, we
Speaker 1: find you will see time and time again at the
Speaker 1: broad splay of the toes and the claw drag impressions
Speaker 1: from the massive fixed claws on the animals four feet.
Speaker 1: The reason they are sprayed wide and not like a
Speaker 1: dog is because th lacenes don't have webbing between their toes.
Speaker 1: Their front feet also still act similar to hands, as
Speaker 1: they can both hop like a kangaroo or run on
Speaker 1: all fours. As a result, many of the princes appear
Speaker 1: that the front feet are literally grabbing the ground as
Speaker 1: they dig in on curves or at high speed when
Speaker 1: pursuing prey. When Europeans first colonized Australia, the Tasmanian tiger
Speaker 1: was rarely seen. The animals started to become increasingly blamed
Speaker 1: for at tax on sheep. However, so private companies and
Speaker 1: the Tasmanian government attempted to curb the population by establishing
Speaker 1: bounties in exchange for dead Thi lacenes. Adding to their
Speaker 1: eventual extinction was the sad fact that Australia's colonization eroded
Speaker 1: the Thi lacens habitat. By the nineteen twenties, sightings of
Speaker 1: the Tasmanian tiger in the wild became extremely rare, and
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty a farmer shot and killed the second
Speaker 1: to last known wild Tasmanian tiger. The final Thi lacene
Speaker 1: was captured in the Florentine Valley in ninety three and
Speaker 1: transferred to the Hobart Zoo on September se In six,
Speaker 1: the animal, known as Benjamin, died in captivity. Black and
Speaker 1: white footage recorded in nineteen thirty three would become historically
Speaker 1: significant as images of the final thiala scene. In seven,
Speaker 1: the Tasmanian Animals and Birds Protection Board a later to
Speaker 1: become the National Park Service, launched a series to determine
Speaker 1: where thialacenes still might be found, Medlock said, Unfortunately, a
Speaker 1: living animal was not discovered. The final search in this
Speaker 1: series was into the Jaine River area in western Tasmania.
Speaker 1: On this search, some Thi lacene footprints were discovered in
Speaker 1: creek bed. The original plaster casts of these prints are
Speaker 1: lodged in the Tasmanian Museum. The Tasmanian Museum doesn't receive
Speaker 1: sighting reports and we don't have the expertise to assess them.
Speaker 1: This is done by the Department of Primary Industries, Water
Speaker 1: and Environment. They continue to record reported sightings and take
Speaker 1: them seriously. Often, however, sightings, films and photographs are released
Speaker 1: to the media through the people who are reporting them
Speaker 1: rather than a government body. Over the years, there have
Speaker 1: been several instances of photographs and films purported to be
Speaker 1: Thi lacens in the wild, but none have been verified
Speaker 1: as genuine evidence of an animal. Waters however, contends that
Speaker 1: there have been dozens of credible sightings of dilocenes. He said,
Speaker 1: actually hundreds of them too many A name. One in
Speaker 1: particular was a bus load of tourists in Western Australia
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen eighties who all saw the animal
Speaker 1: at close range in broad daylight whilst on a wildflower tour.
Speaker 1: The fact that we find headless kangaroos all over Australia
Speaker 1: is a key piece of physical evidence that these animals
Speaker 1: still persist, but nobody wants to know about it because
Speaker 1: it's always blamed on either hunters or satanists by ill
Speaker 1: informed people who don't understand how these animals feed. Waters
Speaker 1: has been working tirelessly to raise public awareness of this
Speaker 1: animal's continued existence for the past five years, meeting dozens
Speaker 1: of witnesses and collecting thousands of statements regarding sightings of
Speaker 1: this animal in both Tasmania and across mainland Australia. His
Speaker 1: work appears in the twenty seventeen document entry Living the
Speaker 1: Thigh Lacene Dream, which follows Waters travels throughout mainland Australia
Speaker 1: to collect evidence of predation, as well as stories of
Speaker 1: sightings from witnesses who are adamant they've seen the thi
Speaker 1: la scene both recently and historically. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Wendy Bowman and produced by Tyler Clang. For more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other curious topics, visit how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.