Tasmanian Tiger or Marsupial Wolf?
Thylacinus cynocephalus extinct or extant?
The last known Thylacinus cynocephalus Tasmanian tiger, Marsupial wolf or Thylacine, died in captivity in 1936 in a Tasmanian zoo; since then many sightings of the marsupial have been made, unfortunately without any clear photographs, clear paw footprints or even carcasses from road kill; but the species was once common enough to be a problem for graziers and predation of their sheep in Tasmania, such that from 1886 to 1908 bounties of £1 per adult tiger were established, generally the equivalent of one weeks wages, making a dead Tasmanian tiger quite valuable.
One of the first reports about the Tasmanian tiger by European settlers was in the Sydney Gazette in 1805, “An animal of a truly singular and nouvel [sic] description was killed by dogs the 30th of March on a hill immediately contiguous to the settlement at Yorkton Port Dalrymple; from the following minute description of which, by Lieutenant Governor Paterson, it must be considered of a species perfectly distinct from any of the animal creation hitherto known, and certainly the only powerful and terrific of the carnivorous and voracious tribe yet discovered on any…
