
Tasmanian tiger: The enduring belief in an extinct animal - jackgavigan
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-37283793
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exodust
This rehashed clickbait appears occasionally in slightly different form.
Blurry photos followed by half-baked claims resurface as lazy copy and paste
"news".

It's no surprise that BBC and ABC have jumped on this rubbish and push it with
the obligatory wink-wink "isn't this fun" journalism plaguing these media
outlets.

There is no widespread belief in the existence of this animal. Human activity
has sent many a creature packing its bags from this world. The thylacine is
just one on a long list.

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Joeboy
Benjamin, the last thylacine in captivity, died of exposure because his
keepers omitted to unlock his sleeping quarters overnight. Even for an
extinction event, that is pretty sad.

~~~
tombert
For a second, I thought you were directly addressing a guy named "Benjamin"...

That's a horrible story, very much "not with a bang, but a whimper".

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bruxa
I mean, sure... there might be a couple of these left in the world because ( I
believe ) that no one can be absolutely certain there aren't... but that
picture/video is an insult to human intelligence.

Come on... we're past those crappy photos of the Loch Ness monster, Big Foot,
etc. Like Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki commented - "It's remarkable that it is out of
focus in a time that we have autofocus cameras."

~~~
Retric
My favorite photo of a lockless monster ex:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster#/media/File:...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster#/media/File:Hoaxed_photo_of_the_Loch_Ness_monster.jpg)
looks like someone swimming the crawl with poor, but not terrible technique.

But, if you really want to see a sea monster I guess you can see a sea
monster. Not sure just how large they think those waves are in a lake.

~~~
YZF
"lockless monster" ... Yeah, it's hard to tell whether it's using mutexes or
not in the photo. ;)

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ajeet_dhaliwal
It's sad this animal is extinct, it's such a great example of convergent
evolution and comparisons with the wolf (mammal) originally got me interested
in thylacine when I was a child.

~~~
gonzo41
It could be still out there, out west. Tasmania has the kind of wilderness in
it in which you can walk in and not walk out. Especially on the west coast.

~~~
neaden
I mean, it's physically possible that that is the case. But it has been 80
years without finding a living one or a recent corpse makes it pretty much a
sure thing.

~~~
Jeema101
There have been many claimed sightings since then, though, including one in
1995 by a wildlife official:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine#Unconfirmed_sighting...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine#Unconfirmed_sightings)

It's not out of the realm of possibility that there's still a very small
population out there...

~~~
civilian
Do we have DNA for Tasmanian tigers?

I wonder if it would be valuable to have a biologist or forest ranger
collecting fur samples that rub off on trees in the area where there's been
some sightings.

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mfairbank
There's an indie film I quite enjoyed called The Hunter, starring Willem
Dafoe, that fictionalizes the demise of the last remaining tiger. I recommend
it highly for the outdoor landscapes and non-traditional plot alone.

~~~
lobster_johnson
The novel, by Julia Leigh [1], is also wonderful. Recommended for fans of
minimalist authors such as J. M. Coetzee, Philip Roth and Cormac McCarthy.

I thought the film captured the tone of the book extremely well, perhaps more
than any adaptation I've seen. I loved the fact that the film explains very
little (and neither does the novel), just lets the story tell itself through
images and sound. Both are underappreciated gems.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Hunter-Julia-
Leigh/dp/0571200192](https://www.amazon.com/Hunter-Julia-Leigh/dp/0571200192)

~~~
mfairbank
Ah, the novel had missed my radar entirely until now, thank you!

Recently I've been enjoying films that cover little niches of the world,
geographic or otherwise, that I know nothing about. Another good example is
Premium Rush (2012). I don't know if there's a name for this genre, as on the
surface the films look nothing alike, and can vary wildly in quality, but
there's just something engrossing about them.

~~~
lobster_johnson
In that case, check out Rams (2016) [1]. An Icelandic film about two
estranged, elderly brothers who work as sheep farmers in a remote location,
until a crisis occurs. Beautiful little film; great photography and music.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/03/movies/review-in-rams-
brot...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/03/movies/review-in-rams-brothers-at-
odds-face-a-shared-threat-to-their-livelihood.html) (although I recommend not
reading anything about it beforehand)

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knz
The Tasmanian tiger always reminds me a little of the efforts to introduce
Moose into New Zealand
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose#New_Zealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose#New_Zealand)).

"In 1900, an attempt to introduce moose into the Hokitika area failed; then in
1910 ten moose (four bulls and six cows) were introduced into Fiordland. This
area is considered a less than suitable habitat, and subsequent low numbers of
sightings and kills have led to some presumption of this population's failure.
The last proven sighting of a moose in New Zealand was in 1952."

Fiordland is a wild and remote part of the country...

~~~
neaden
Right, and they found proof of the moose there from an antler, hair, and
physical signs like antler marks. None of this has been found for the
Tasmanian Tiger.

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davegardner
AFter spending some time in Tasmania I can see how it would be easy to imagine
there could still be Thylacines living in the bush. The island contains some
very large national parks and reserves, and the Thylacine was fairly well
camouflaged for that environment.

~~~
neaden
But no one has found a corpse, or bones, or gotten a clear picture etc. at
this point despite many many people searching and a large cash bounty for
proof. I don't think it's that good at hiding.

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trhway
>The species was deliberately hunted to extinction by farmers incensed at the
number of sheep killed by the carnivores.

like in other similar situations, for example with wolves in Montana, i wonder
why just not use the shepherd dogs, i mean this is how it worked for thousands
years before.

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aryehof
Sadly killing is so easy, and arguably also so "human".

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isuckatcoding
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703148/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703148/)

