Thylacine (Thylacinus Cynocephalus) World 

Is hope such a bad thing...? 

A lot has been written about the Dingo and its impact on the Thylacine on mainland Australia over the last 4-10,000 years. Did the Thylacine decline due to the Dingo's tendency to be a more successful pack hunter and thus making it more dominant, or was it due to It’s forelimb Anatomy and the Discrimination of the Predatory Behaviour of Carnivorous Placental Mammals versus Marsupials? 

Or was it something as simple as the skull mechanics and jaw strength that gave the dingo the edge? Whatever it was it seemed to push the Thylacine & the Devil into decline on the mainland in the not so distant past. Although, a number of dead Devils have been found in the rural parts of Victoria in the last 100 years...

The image that a lot of people have of the Thylacine or Tasmanian Wolf today is a bold and elusive animal. Probably because so many people claim to have seen it, since the last one died in Hobart Zoo in 1936. 

In fact over 7000+ witnesses between the mainland and Tasmania. It probably sleeps in it’s lairs with its pouched young, all over the mainland every night laughing to itself at how it has managed to survive against all odds, even at the hands of European colonisation. The Smithsonian specimen is an abrupt reminder of how sad our competition with nature can be…

Things like quadrupedal overstep stride, measurements of spore, trackway casts, predatory behaviour evidence, feeding behaviour evidence is collected all over Australia every year, yet nobody seems to be able to satisfactorily explain what is beheading kangaroos and livestock in the dark hours of our rural areas.

The Procedure for Handling of Petitions against Current Listings on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, ( IUCN Red List ), is very clear about it’s terms and conditions for making an animal extant again after being declared extinct. 

The threat categories for animals and plants is a world wide standard to ensure continuity and consistency of data for all known species.

You must have a taxon either dead or alive and proof of breeding to qualify to even get a look in the door.

Sadly, even after the discovery of a Thylacine carcass in Western Australia in 1966 in a cave on The Nullabor, we still didn’t get a result that brought the animal back to life on the mainland. 

It was considered to be between 95 and 2000+ years old after carbon dating, regardless of its appearance and strong odour. 

There have been hundreds of Tasmanian Tiger/ Thylacine sightings in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and even Northern Territory as recent as 2018.

 There have been iconic regional Myths and Monsters recorded all over Australia since European colonisation. There’s the Tantanoola Tiger, the Houghton Howler, the Beast of Buderim, the Nannup Tiger and more... 

There is Tiger Hill in Queensland, Tiger plains in South Australia, Willamulkas Tiger and who could forget the Ozenkadnook Tiger of the 60’s and Rilla Martins famous photo that will sadly always remain a mystery...

When you compare a fox skull to a thylacine skull there are many differences to be noted. They also share a very different gait and footfall pattern and a fox has very small feet by comparison. Yet people keep being told they are seeing mangy foxes despite witnesses describing the contrary and the presence of large spoor samples. 

Then there is Kevin Cameron's photos and the ridicule he so undeservedly got from the media and some of the science community.

Peter Spriv finally set the record straight in 2017 after the TAGOA Meet n Greet in Nannup about the whole affair and why, the shadow lines were different, as it was explained to him by Syd Slee himself. 

There really is evidence to support the theory that Thylacine's are and always have been on the mainland and it goes back hundreds of years and has a history in every state of Australia.

There is a Tasmanian Devil's map of their past distribution on the mainland that overlaps the Thylacine sightings map from ARFRA quite well. 

Like the Megafauna before them, the large Marsupial predators even left their mark on places such as Kangaroo Island where their trackways have been found in fossil evidence.

Dr Bob Paddle’s book, aptly titled,” The Last Thylacine” tempts us to the reality of extinction but is the jury ever going to resit on this issue? I hope so.

I think we would all like to hold that tiger one day that has been raised in captivity safe away from the ravages of man, but the Thylacine never thrived in captivity. We never bothered to study it in the wild enough to fully understand it’s social and dietary needs. 

If we get that opportunity in the future, I hope we don’t screw it up a second time. This animal needs to be free....

Good healthy eco systems have a natural balance of prey/predator relationships, basically if we don’t have anything eating the little guys, we have major problems. But the same applies to the big herbivores too and too many of them will throw things out of balance. 

Things like The Wild dog strategic plan may be a step in the right direction for farmers and graziers, but is aerial baiting with 1080 over vast areas of our interior really the worlds best practice for safety and prevention of off target damage to non-target species..?, not to mention how utterly cruel and painful a death it inflicts on it’s victims.

This website is a genuine effort to try and show the viewer that the Apex predators that eat like marsupials, are still present on mainland Australia and in Tasmania. It is the culmination of the efforts of hundreds and hundreds of people to tell their story and to not be ridiculed for what they have seen and experienced. 

Whether you are a skeptic or a believer, a witness or just curious, this website is for people who might be willing to consider the impossible about the possible existence of the Thylacine post extinction in Tasmania and against all "scientific dialogue"  and odds, on the mainland as well. 

Seeing is definitely believing...