8 ms·

People are reporting sightings of the Tasmanian tiger, thought to be extinct

115 points by shawndumas 7y ago

LeonB 7y ago
"One report last February said that two people, visiting Tasmania from Australia," ...from "mainland" Australia perhaps. "newly released Australian government documents" ...aren't from the federal government, but from the Tasmanian state government. These "detailed" sightings are almost universally worthless.
droithomme 7y ago
This is very exciting news. The Coelacanth was also extinct - for several hundred million years - until it wasn't. Maybe Tasmanian tiger this year and Mokele-mbembe next year? Not impossible. Though unlikely.
- walrus01 7y ago
  Local fishermen caught coelacanth all the time, they had no idea that university-educated foreigners considered it to be extinct.
- rectangletangle 7y ago
  The New Caledonian crested gecko was thought to be extinct for over 100 years until they were rediscovered in 1994. Now they're common place in the pet trade because they're so hardy. Rediscovery of "extinct" species is common place, because of the inherent difficulty in proving that all individuals of a given species are dead. Combine this with the robustness of biology, allowing species to quickly boom under favorable conditions, and then false extinction ends up happening more often than you would probably suspect. It's normal for many healthy populations to fluctuate wildly around a given carrying capacity. r-selected organisms are particularly notorious for having like 95% of the population die off regularly, and then bouncing back in a few years. In the case of the thylacine, it's a macro organism so it probably has a higher profile when compared to a small gecko. So the likelihood that they're still extant probably isn't quite as high, unfortunately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crested_gecko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crested_gecko
hnick 7y ago
There have been reported sightings my whole life ever since I can remember, and I was born here in Australia in the 1980s. While I don't think it's impossible, I'm not sure what's new here except the fact that almost everyone now carries a camera yet we're still to get clear images ;)
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  In fairness, it's nocturnal and probably buggers off quickly when it spots you. But I'm biased, I'm a moose believer (or as I like to call it, a moother) based on the circumstantial evidence, but a lot of people are skeptical a creature as large as a moose could keep a low profile that long. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103196185/new-zealands-moose-hunt-a-centurylong-quest-for-a-forests-final-secret https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103196185/new-zealands-moos...
  - hnick 7y ago
    Hah, that moose one is new to me. We have a history of some big cat sightings here around Sydney and NSW. The usual story is some US military people brought it (them?) for some reason and it escaped, I think. Though there are many stories and explanations as you'd expect.
    - EdwardDiego 7y ago
      Well, we definitely know that they were there, released in the hey-day of Acclimatisation Societies, but the last proof of them was in the 1950s. The fact that no-one saw them while helicopters were beating the bush during the goldrush red deer helicopter hunting years counts against them, but my pet theory is that moose love water, and there's plenty of swamps in Fiordland (if there's a flat bit, it's probably a swamp) to hide from helicopters in.
    - dwd 7y ago
      Personal story, the first I ever heard of big cats living in the Grampians, Victoria was after coming back from a lone morning hike up Boronia Peak overlooking Halls Gap. I would have been around 14 at the time and told some of the adults back at the campsite that I found really big cat paw prints on the bank of a creek. Similar story of US Airmen releasing their mascot pumas into the wild.
cyberferret 7y ago
I remember driving through the mountains of Tasmania about 20 years ago - some backwater road towards Zeehan if memory serves me correctly. I recall looking in my rear view mirror during one stretch and seeing a yellow/tan coloured dog like creature crossing the road a few hundred metres behind the car. I couldn't see any stripes clearly in the 2 seconds in was in the mirror. I dismissed it as a dog because (a) it was daylight and Thylacine's are purported to be nocturnal (b) it was near reasonably trafficked road and they are known to be shy and (c) I don't think the population of the Tassie Tiger was very strong in the North Western part of the island where I was. But what if?? <thinking face emoji>
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  I live in Tasmania, about 3km from the nearest Apple store ;) You’d think the most obvious sign of a living Thylacine would be poop. Poop isn’t nocturnal and doesn’t run away when spotted. Is there anyone who claims to have found Tassie Tiger poop?
ryanmcbride 7y ago
People also report sightings of bigfoot, aliens, ghosts. I'd love for them to not be extinct but reported sightings aren't even close to enough to go off of.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hanniabu 7y ago
I really wish articles like this weren't published since they're basically a call for poachers.
olliej 7y ago
People have been reporting sightings for decades - almost since the last known one died. Similar for Moas in NZ. Or Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster. Hearsay of sightings should not be news. Quality video evidence is the only thing that should get to a news site.
aaron695 7y ago
This is a interesting LARP. Cryptozoology can be fun. What is also interesting is there was Cryptozoology fun that people said foxes had deliberately been introduced to Tasmania. $40,000,000 later - https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/tasmanian-watchdog-clears-faux-fox-poo-claim/news-story/147acd9c0c4041fd9d59a8717c466df5 https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/tasmanian... LARPing is fun, and $40,000,000 is the cost of a movie. But it still seems wrong.....
m3kw9 7y ago
Is always reported but never caught
ocschwar 7y ago
No bones, no story.
pvaldes 7y ago
Could be dogs or foxes easily also
Hitton 7y ago
I'm surprised that they don't try to set up few dozens photo-traps in the area, in Europe it works quite well for proving re-emergence of wolves in areas where they were not seen for hundred years.
- clouddrover 7y ago
  They have. Here's the best result so far: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-06/tasmanian-tiger-sighting-claimed-by-trio/8877598 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-06/tasmanian-tiger-sight... It's not exactly convincing.
  - jcroll 7y ago
    Ok, but what else could it be?
    - clouddrover 7y ago
      Anything. A quoll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoll Or a feral cat: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-15/feral-cat-caught-on-camera-eating-entire-kangaroo-carcass/11595514 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-15/feral-cat-caught-on-c... Feral cats are capable of killing pademelons: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-30/scientists-catch-a-feral-cat-killing-a-large-mammal-on-camera-f/6357868 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-30/scientists-catch-a-fe... And feral cats can grow to be quite large and feisty: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/truckie-saves-pet-feral-cat-attack/9846240 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/truckie-saves-pet-fer...
pcurve 7y ago
Someday, when every man, woman, and child carries a camera, we will get a picture of this illusive creature. Someday.
jayalpha 7y ago
Related: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703148/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703148/
- atombender 7y ago
  That's a very good movie. It's based on a superb novel [1] by the Australian writer and director Julia Leigh. The film captures the quiet, minimalist style of the book really well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunter_(Leigh_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunter_(Leigh_novel)
krm01 7y ago
"Life will find a way"
- eicossa 7y ago
  "Life ... ummm, finds a way"
ForHackernews 7y ago
There have long been reported sightings of the Tasmanian tiger, and they're mostly not very credible. The New Yorker had an outstanding article about the small group of people who think it might have survived: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/02/the-obsessive-search-for-the-tasmanian-tiger https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/02/the-obsessive-... They're sort of like big foot hunters, except the animal they're looking for used to exist.
crashbunny 7y ago
> One report last February said that two people, visiting Tasmania from Australia, Haha, Tasmania is a state of Australia and they are a little sensitive about slips of the tongue implying Australia is a separate place to them.
herostratus101 7y ago
Pics or it didn't happen.
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Not interesting until the frequency of 'spotting dog looking like a Tasmanian tiger' is estimated, and compared with the frequency of current 'tiger' sightings. Otherwise, what's being talked about?

115 points by shawndumas 7y ago

"One report last February said that two people, visiting Tasmania from Australia," ...from "mainland" Australia perhaps. "newly released Australian government documents" ...aren't from the federal government, but from the Tasmanian state government. These "detailed" sightings are almost universally worthless.

droithomme 7y ago

This is very exciting news. The Coelacanth was also extinct - for several hundred million years - until it wasn't. Maybe Tasmanian tiger this year and Mokele-mbembe next year? Not impossible. Though unlikely.

walrus01 7y ago
Local fishermen caught coelacanth all the time, they had no idea that university-educated foreigners considered it to be extinct.
rectangletangle 7y ago
The New Caledonian crested gecko was thought to be extinct for over 100 years until they were rediscovered in 1994. Now they're common place in the pet trade because they're so hardy. Rediscovery of "extinct" species is common place, because of the inherent difficulty in proving that all individuals of a given species are dead. Combine this with the robustness of biology, allowing species to quickly boom under favorable conditions, and then false extinction ends up happening more often than you would probably suspect. It's normal for many healthy populations to fluctuate wildly around a given carrying capacity. r-selected organisms are particularly notorious for having like 95% of the population die off regularly, and then bouncing back in a few years. In the case of the thylacine, it's a macro organism so it probably has a higher profile when compared to a small gecko. So the likelihood that they're still extant probably isn't quite as high, unfortunately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crested_gecko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crested_gecko

hnick 7y ago

There have been reported sightings my whole life ever since I can remember, and I was born here in Australia in the 1980s. While I don't think it's impossible, I'm not sure what's new here except the fact that almost everyone now carries a camera yet we're still to get clear images ;)

EdwardDiego 7y ago
In fairness, it's nocturnal and probably buggers off quickly when it spots you. But I'm biased, I'm a moose believer (or as I like to call it, a moother) based on the circumstantial evidence, but a lot of people are skeptical a creature as large as a moose could keep a low profile that long. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103196185/new-zealands-moose-hunt-a-centurylong-quest-for-a-forests-final-secret https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103196185/new-zealands-moos...
- hnick 7y ago
  Hah, that moose one is new to me. We have a history of some big cat sightings here around Sydney and NSW. The usual story is some US military people brought it (them?) for some reason and it escaped, I think. Though there are many stories and explanations as you'd expect.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    Well, we definitely know that they were there, released in the hey-day of Acclimatisation Societies, but the last proof of them was in the 1950s. The fact that no-one saw them while helicopters were beating the bush during the goldrush red deer helicopter hunting years counts against them, but my pet theory is that moose love water, and there's plenty of swamps in Fiordland (if there's a flat bit, it's probably a swamp) to hide from helicopters in.
  - dwd 7y ago
    Personal story, the first I ever heard of big cats living in the Grampians, Victoria was after coming back from a lone morning hike up Boronia Peak overlooking Halls Gap. I would have been around 14 at the time and told some of the adults back at the campsite that I found really big cat paw prints on the bank of a creek. Similar story of US Airmen releasing their mascot pumas into the wild.

cyberferret 7y ago

I remember driving through the mountains of Tasmania about 20 years ago - some backwater road towards Zeehan if memory serves me correctly. I recall looking in my rear view mirror during one stretch and seeing a yellow/tan coloured dog like creature crossing the road a few hundred metres behind the car. I couldn't see any stripes clearly in the 2 seconds in was in the mirror. I dismissed it as a dog because (a) it was daylight and Thylacine's are purported to be nocturnal (b) it was near reasonably trafficked road and they are known to be shy and (c) I don't think the population of the Tassie Tiger was very strong in the North Western part of the island where I was. But what if?? <thinking face emoji>

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
I live in Tasmania, about 3km from the nearest Apple store ;) You’d think the most obvious sign of a living Thylacine would be poop. Poop isn’t nocturnal and doesn’t run away when spotted. Is there anyone who claims to have found Tassie Tiger poop?

ryanmcbride 7y ago

People also report sightings of bigfoot, aliens, ghosts. I'd love for them to not be extinct but reported sightings aren't even close to enough to go off of.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

hanniabu 7y ago

I really wish articles like this weren't published since they're basically a call for poachers.

olliej 7y ago

People have been reporting sightings for decades - almost since the last known one died. Similar for Moas in NZ. Or Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster. Hearsay of sightings should not be news. Quality video evidence is the only thing that should get to a news site.

aaron695 7y ago

This is a interesting LARP. Cryptozoology can be fun. What is also interesting is there was Cryptozoology fun that people said foxes had deliberately been introduced to Tasmania. $40,000,000 later - https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/tasmanian-watchdog-clears-faux-fox-poo-claim/news-story/147acd9c0c4041fd9d59a8717c466df5 https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/tasmanian... LARPing is fun, and $40,000,000 is the cost of a movie. But it still seems wrong.....

m3kw9 7y ago

Is always reported but never caught

ocschwar 7y ago

No bones, no story.

pvaldes 7y ago

Could be dogs or foxes easily also

Hitton 7y ago

I'm surprised that they don't try to set up few dozens photo-traps in the area, in Europe it works quite well for proving re-emergence of wolves in areas where they were not seen for hundred years.

clouddrover 7y ago
They have. Here's the best result so far: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-06/tasmanian-tiger-sighting-claimed-by-trio/8877598 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-06/tasmanian-tiger-sight... It's not exactly convincing.
- jcroll 7y ago
  Ok, but what else could it be?
  - clouddrover 7y ago
    Anything. A quoll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoll Or a feral cat: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-15/feral-cat-caught-on-camera-eating-entire-kangaroo-carcass/11595514 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-15/feral-cat-caught-on-c... Feral cats are capable of killing pademelons: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-30/scientists-catch-a-feral-cat-killing-a-large-mammal-on-camera-f/6357868 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-30/scientists-catch-a-fe... And feral cats can grow to be quite large and feisty: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/truckie-saves-pet-feral-cat-attack/9846240 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/truckie-saves-pet-fer...

pcurve 7y ago

Someday, when every man, woman, and child carries a camera, we will get a picture of this illusive creature. Someday.

jayalpha 7y ago

Related: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703148/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703148/

atombender 7y ago
That's a very good movie. It's based on a superb novel [1] by the Australian writer and director Julia Leigh. The film captures the quiet, minimalist style of the book really well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunter_(Leigh_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunter_(Leigh_novel)

krm01 7y ago

"Life will find a way"

eicossa 7y ago
"Life ... ummm, finds a way"

ForHackernews 7y ago

There have long been reported sightings of the Tasmanian tiger, and they're mostly not very credible. The New Yorker had an outstanding article about the small group of people who think it might have survived: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/02/the-obsessive-search-for-the-tasmanian-tiger https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/02/the-obsessive-... They're sort of like big foot hunters, except the animal they're looking for used to exist.

crashbunny 7y ago

> One report last February said that two people, visiting Tasmania from Australia, Haha, Tasmania is a state of Australia and they are a little sensitive about slips of the tongue implying Australia is a separate place to them.

herostratus101 7y ago

Pics or it didn't happen.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

Not interesting until the frequency of 'spotting dog looking like a Tasmanian tiger' is estimated, and compared with the frequency of current 'tiger' sightings. Otherwise, what's being talked about?