
People are reporting sightings of the Tasmanian tiger, thought to be extinct - shawndumas
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/16/australia/tasmanian-tiger-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
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hnick
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
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-
moos...](https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/103196185/new-zealands-moose-hunt-a-
centurylong-quest-for-a-forests-final-secret)

~~~
hnick
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.

~~~
dwd
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.

~~~
samplatt
Rural WA'ian here. There's plenty of rumours of a "panther" around Nannup; no
US Airmen story, it was just a really big black feral cat the size of a
panther.

From what I've seen personally, feral gets can get BIG. Like mastiff-sized. So
I tend to believe these rumours but take their origins with various grains of
salt.

~~~
dwd
The origin stories should be taken with a grain of salt, but that we have
cougar-sized ferals is well recorded. There was a Gippsland feral killed and
DNA tested that was half as big again as a record-sized domestic cat.

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2005-11-28/tests-reveal-super-
si...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2005-11-28/tests-reveal-super-sized-feral-
cat/750340)

------
cyberferret
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
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?

------
LeonB
"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.

------
crashbunny
> 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.

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

------
ryanmcbride
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.

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Hitton
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
They have. Here's the best result so far:

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-06/tasmanian-tiger-
sight...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-06/tasmanian-tiger-sighting-
claimed-by-trio/8877598)

It's not exactly convincing.

~~~
jcroll
Ok, but what else could it be?

~~~
clouddrover
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-c...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-15/feral-cat-caught-on-camera-
eating-entire-kangaroo-carcass/11595514)

Feral cats are capable of killing pademelons:
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-30/scientists-catch-a-
fe...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-30/scientists-catch-a-feral-cat-
killing-a-large-mammal-on-camera-f/6357868)

And feral cats can grow to be quite large and feisty:
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/truckie-saves-pet-
fer...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/truckie-saves-pet-feral-cat-
attack/9846240)

------
ForHackernews
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-...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/02/the-obsessive-
search-for-the-tasmanian-tiger)

They're sort of like big foot hunters, except the animal they're looking for
used to exist.

------
olliej
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.

------
jayalpha
Related:
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703148/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703148/)

~~~
atombender
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_\(Leigh_novel\))

------
JoeAltmaier
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?

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

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m3kw9
Is always reported but never caught

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droithomme
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.

~~~
rectangletangle
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)

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pvaldes
Could be dogs or foxes easily also

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krm01
"Life will find a way"

~~~
eicossa
"Life ... ummm, finds a way"

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herostratus101
Pics or it didn't happen.

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ocschwar
No bones, no story.

