Sunday Telegraph (Sydney), 27 March, p. 46. " Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service acknowledges and pays respect to Tasmanian Aboriginal people as the traditional and original owners, and continuing custodians of this land and acknowledges Elders - past, present . All the patients I mentioned it to were not surprised. It had a sharp face, full ears, a hard erect rather round body, high in the shoulders, tall lean thin legs, long thin hard looking tail and the faintest glimpse of darker stripes around the body.". My friend who was with me describes it as follows, it looked like a kangaroo but it walked rather than hopped. He said the animal, which he claimed could not be confused with a dog, was the size of a fox, with the head of a kangaroo and had a thick striped tail which tapered at the end. I thought it was a cat at first but as I approached, it didnt scurry as a cat would. The wolf-like thylacine . (2017). I could tell by its fur. A huge population of mutant tiger snakes has inhabited a small island off the coast of Tasmania to the point where tales of fleeing tourists are routinely regaled like . I searched the locality but found no sign of a body. The animal stood about 61cm off the. A massive animal crossed the road in front of me. She said that its gait was awkward looking, and looked like it was loping because its front legs were shorter than its back legs, and it looked quite ungainly as it ran. ", "The Minto Monster was back in the news again in 1973 when claims that a mysterious creature had been 'terrorising' East Minto residents with its blood curdling screams. There is a maze of rock crevices and caverns in which any animals could live unseen, and it is into this gully that the 'tiger' tracks led. However, now she felt reluctant to go for walks on the road. It occured roughly 30km from the first, some twenty years earlier. These were mostly reported by motorists.". I looked it up on the internet and it did look like the pictures of thylacines but with no stripes. Now, a newly released government document has revealed sightings have been reported as recently as two months ago. It looked like a cross between a dog and a kangaroo. I was on my way to work at the time, heading for Glenbrook Railway Station and had no time to pursue it, when it ran off holding its prey in its mouth. I was sitting there going "what was it?". Each time it was in the same area, crossing the same road xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, heading into a sugar cane field. It had stripes and blue eyes, and I now realise when I look back that it was a thylacine I reckon. It was 60 to 70 cm high and covered with short ginger-blond short hair with a narrow, small triangular-shaped head, a long thin neck, a long straight, thin tail that was as long as the animal. ", Johns third sighting of a tiger took place in March 1984 around 6.10am. With the bag over the animals head they were able to safely release it back into the wild. In 1982, the species was declared extinctas there had been no proof of the thylacine's . Following this animal were 3 smaller identical animals. Although it could possibly be a fox or bird, when I looked up the sound a thylacine makes, it was identical to one we found on YouTube. He said it had stripes & a sloping back. They both wouldnt have believed what they had seen unless the other had confirmed it. March 2, 2021 - 2:00PM The highly anticipated photos of a 'living' Tasmania tiger family have been released and the man who captured them says he's "absolutely confident" at least one is a thylacine. He described the creature as having black to faded stripes on its back-end and smaller than a dingo. A rough transcript of her report (1:32-3:09) is as follows: "I take people out into the rainforest with the night vision goggles, ummm, and we go looking for animals. Published January 11, 2023. They weighed 33 to 66 lbs. Neil Waters released a video last week teasing fans about the photos which he claimed were proof the extinct animals were still alive. Two days later their teenage son observed it and described it as being a cross between a kangaroo and a greyhound. I had my large driving lights on which clearly picked out an animal in front of my car about 2 kms north past the Lennox Head turnoff. It really caught my attention, and I found myself thinking about this animal for days.", "25thFebruary 2006, Saturday night, Main Arm Road, Mullumbimby; Richard sighted a thylacine-like animal on the road as he drove from Main Arm to Mullumbimby and he pulled off the road to look where the creature went. A woman hounded out of Byron Bay for her reporting to have seen a thylacine. In that article I described my 1972 night-time encounter in a car being driven by a woman who was driving me to my [then] North Katoomba home. Two km to the south-west of the Green Frog Caf & general store he and a friend saw in the car headlights an unusual animal cross the road 6 to 12 metres in front of them. The tiger tracks were found in a hanging swamp area which was part of a rain forest on the south side of the mountain. He never saw the animal again even though he drove those same roads for another 2 years. Then seeing us, turned and dashed off into the darkness. The creature, said Shannon, remained there for perhaps 2 to 5 minutes as they stood observing it. Source:Hunt, Elle. [chapter title: Thylacines, pp. There is a lot of bush and a lot of cover and I think it's living quite comfortably there. He described the specimen as funny looking with a big long tail and stumpy ears. ", "In March 1982, a camper sighted a thylacine-like animal drinking from a creek in the Grose valleyThe camper described the animal he saw as being two metres long, with greyish body fur {coloration can vary} displaying about a dozen blackish stripes extending down the body. Sometimes you just need to know when to let the squirrel win the day. Like you're listening, you're looking, and you're identifying attributes of the animal. Its physical appearance matched that of stuffed specimen's preserved in government museums.". It was not afraid of me but backed away whenever I approached closer than 2-3 m. The tail was the least dog-like feature. . It was dog-like and about the size of a full-grown Alsatian, with fawn-coloured short body hair and a row of blackish body stripes extending barrel-wise from mid-back to tail rump. Then she found that the woman that worked in the store had recently observed two of the animals chasing and killing a swamp wallaby near her home just a few kms up the valley. So we see lots of normal Australian little animals. When I saw the impressions I recognised them at once as those of a Thylacine, and immediately began making plaster casts of them. They said when they saw it, they both said "what was that", because it looked different to anything they had seen before. The guy on duty looked at me as if I was some sort of crank who had just reported a Martian, but at least gave me a book to leaf through to see if I could recognize the species. Five vets all agree it looks like a four-legged animal and not a macropod that hops, Mr Waters says. Stories of the Tasmanian Tiger. The next day the farm owner brought up his rifle but the animal was gone and they never saw it again. While the unconfirmed sightings may fuel the hopes of some, the thylacine is still widely considered to be extinct. It was long in the flank, like a horse. The creature looked like a dog-possum-bird-kangaroo, but was none of these. ", "A friend, Haley, told them that around about 1996 she had observed a large cat-like creature with a plain coloured body and a banded furred tail leap across Coopers Creek behind Durrumbul north of Mullumbimby in northeastern NSW. Mr Waters says these signs include the way the tail sits, the fact the feet are broad and there are four toe pads with claws. Wildlife Tasmanian tiger sightings: 'I represent 3,000 people who have been told they're nuts' The Thylacine Awareness Group is 'dedicated to the research, recognition and conservation of our. The last thylacine, the official name of the Tasmanian tiger that was the Australian island's apex predator, died in a zoo in Hobart in 1936. The head and everything else about it compared with pictures he had seen of Thylacines, and it was also a thin-bodied animal, which would surely make it a male [females being thicker set animals]. We could not see stripes. There was blood on the wire and wooden framework and a trail of paw prints led from there down a bush track. By the 1920s, sightings of the Tasmanian tiger in the wild had become extremely rare and in 1930, a farmer from Mawbanna named Wilf Batty shot and killed the last known wild Tasmanian tiger. Reports from other states and countries can be accessedhere. To the west of here, outside Capertee, at least two of these elusive forest-dwellers have been claimed seen by campers on separate occasions.". I showed him a photo on-line, and he said "That's it. There is no doubt in our minds that the creatures we saw were Tasmanian Tigers, said Sam.". Casts made from these tracks would later be successfully compared with Thylacine paw casts from Tasmania, found by another researcher in 1974.The success of our expedition was publicised in the Lithgow Mercury newspaper", "Freshly made paw prints of one or more of these creatures found by ourselves and colleagues at another Blue Mountains location in 1983 and 1984. An enigmatic report of an animal called a "hyena", which was one of the colonial names for the thylacine, killed in 1803: "Two animals of the hyena kind were seen at Campbell's Island by hunting parties belonging to the Mary and Sally ; from the description given of which they appear to have been of the same species with an animal killed at Port Phillip in 1803.". "In November of 1997, about 30 - 60km south of Broken Hill at 7.30am on the Silver City Hwy I too saw what can only be decribed as a Tassie Tiger, much to the 'joy' of all who I have told. ", Source:https://www.ski.com.au/xf/threads/thylacines-on-the-mainland.5777/, "He also reported that a friend, Jan, told him that many years ago she had watched for ten minutes, illuminated in the headlights, a pair of striped thylacines licking and preening each other on the roadside in the Snowy Mountains, in southern NSW. The last close sighting was about 6 months ago and it was right by our car on our forest drive. Robyn says the animal appeared to know where it was heading, as if it were used to a particular. Another report given to Samantha came from a woman called Gail who worked at Durrumbul preschool and who had seen one crawl from beneath the preschool building and walk in a hopping way. "2nd November 2006, 9 pm, Thursday, New Brighton; Rob was fishing at Casons Road, New Brighton, when they saw an unusual animal. I made all the observations with great care, hoping to discuss the animal with my colleagues, but they unfortunately had been collecting on the opposite side of the road, and had not seen it. As he slowed down he observed it closely at an angle and was extremely surprised by the length of the tail which curved down and back up from the ground. I've never seen nothing like it again. He believes about 200 Tasmanian tigers exist in three separate groups on the island, 100 in the south-west, 70 in the north-west and 30 in the north-east. They were somewhat smaller than a German Sheppard dog, much larger than a fox and one individual was smaller and was standing in front of the larger animal. Register, Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout. It then ran across the road as I pulled up. ", "June 2003, Rosebank; Neil saw an animal that he could not identify while driving to Rosebank from Clunes at 8.30 pm. Trailing a Tiger. I was already out of breath as I entered the trees, and soon realised the animal had given me the slip, so I walked back to the car. He and his friend were quite close to the base of the mountain when they passed an odd looking animal. Its buttocks were tapered toward the tail. Anyone who has seen the earth around Broken Hill it was that colour. Suddenly I caught sight of a large dog-like animal in the headlights just as I was turning a corner. Most data was collected from old material. Tasmanian tigers were 39 to 51 inches (100 to 130 centimeters) long, and the tail added 20 to 26 inches (50 to 65 cm) to its length. The length of the animal was something like 5ft from nose to tail tip. Over 7000 to be exact. It was about 5ft from head to tail tip and up to 1 ft tall. "There's a lot more chronic searching these days with cameras and wildlife traps for other animals. It was the vocalization that really threw me. Since then, no conclusive evidence has emerged to suggest that Tasmanian tigers still exist in the wild, and the species was declared officially extinct in 1986, the Tasmanian Government's. It seemed to be stationary for a second or two as it was down the end of a long stretch of road so I managed a pretty good look. From a newspaper article: "Ive seen plenty of dingoes in my life and Im educated quite well on animals and the bush, he said. The document includes detailed accounts of alleged close encounters with the mysterious predator across the northern and western regions of the state. Source: Cronshaw, Damon. Michael noticed that it had a distinct waddle of the back legs as it walked and he watched it turn away from him and saw that it had a white band at the end of the tail with a black tip. Christian Kopp (11 at the time) and his father saw a thylacine when collecting firewood. ", Source:http://campbelltown-library.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-minto-monster.html. The animal "turned and looked at the vehicle a couple of times" and "was in clear view for 12-15 seconds.". It had its tail out straight and it seems like the tail is very tense. They never did see any sign of it again. ", Source:https://www.thylacineawarenessgroupofaustralia.com.au/read-tagoa-witness-sighting-reports.htm, Please consider purchasing or sharing my new Kindle eBook on the current biodiversity crisis, to help raise funds for this website: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09P8PQ8N2/, A free Kindle eReader app can be downloaded for PC and Mac users: https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/browse.html%3Fnode=8498354051&ref=kcp_fd_hz. Trailing a Tiger. Busy mum, blogger and musician, trying to thrive in Scandinavia. On a bike ride to the beach they had a good look at what both thought may have been a Tasmanian tiger as ridiculous as that sounds, stated Andrew. The Guardian (Australia), Thursday 1 December. Unlike most marsupials, the males also had an abdominal, back-opening pouch. The reserve water levels were down and it was where the water would normally be if the dam was full. When Europeans first settled, the Tasmanian tiger was rarely seen, however, they became increasingly blamed for attacks on sheep. It looked like a female lion, but it had stripes on the flank and stripes on the tail. (1997). During the course of our search we uncovered a sandstone shoal containing water pools with ancient Aboriginal stone axe grinding grooves, and a rock shelter containing surface stone flakes manufactured around 6,000 years ago. seen by Robyn Simon and Rebecca Jackson could only be a visitor to the, area, until it settles into a new habitat, perhaps with its mate if one is nearby, out on the, Does the Tasmanian tiger still exist? It appeared greyish-brown, with dark stripes on the hind quarters, but none occurred up front. It never stopped and kept a constant pace. I tried to explain it to people for years but couldn't. "West of the Kanimbla-Megalong Valleys lies the Jenolan Road, where motorists and locals have been seeing tigers for generations. The fur was short, with a sandy beige colour. The animals face was like a dingo/dog/wolf but with rounder ears. While Mr Waters says the larger animals in the photos - which he claims to be the mother and father - arent giving much away, he says the joey says it all. Russel observed on two occasions in the same place, families of three very sleek thylacine-like animals with brown lion-like coloured fur, dark bands on the flanks, with long rigid tails held low to the ground, running through the bush. The animal was in the headlights of my car eating road kill in the middle of a road and then bolted into thick scrub. A large excerpt, possibly the entirety of the paper, is given at the Thylacine Museum website: "During the CSIRO Entomological Expedition, November 1949, I had the good fortune of seeing the animal on the route from Bourke to Wanaaring, in an uninhabited area a few miles past the Warrego Rivers, where I was collecting on the right-hand side of the road, only a few yards from the road. It is almost legendary in its native land, and although purportedly extinct, there have been numerous sightings, photographs, and video footage put forward over the years that . Quite suddenly the animal reared on it's hind legs, nose to the air, turned to the opposite direction than that it had been standing and raced into the vegetation at speed. "It won't be much longer because we're very close to getting irrefutable proof the animal is still here," he said. The creature then ran down the side of a house into scrub. Source:Cronshaw, Damon. 5 BEST Tasmanian Tiger Sightings Caught On VIDEO - YouTube 0:00 / 11:53 #Thylacine #TasmanianTiger 5 BEST Tasmanian Tiger Sightings Caught On VIDEO Wildlife With Cookie 18.8K subscribers Join. The carnivorous Thylacine ate rodents, birds, kangaroos and other marsupials. It was covered with a fine short brown fur except for the rump and tail, which was bare skinned with individual hairs scattered evenly across it. ", "in February 1984 we organised another expedition to this remote area with Rod Gurney and Robert Ashworth, and found more Thylacine paw prints in the swamp mud. This animal had walked around the edge of before drinking, then retraced its steps back towards the gully. The impression was healthy-lean. "Further west beyond Blackheath lies the town of Mount Victoria, on the western edge of the Blue Mountains. Far longer than any dogs tail & kinda looked like a kangaroo's tail. It was about 5ft [1.53m] in length from head to tail, which, was stiff with no point. The reported sightings are contained in a document from Tasmania's Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE). He spotted moving along the cement wall on the side of the road. It was about 18 kg, fawn coloured short dense fur. At worst, it couldnt have been any more than 10 meters from me as it went tearing past, so I got a great view of it front on and in profile, and I tell you, it was one of the oddest creatures Ive ever seen! ", "The Wollangambe Wilderness is a truly wild and remote region, situated north of the Grose Valley and north of the Bell-Bilpin Road. It could be found across the entirety of Australia, and even into the south of New Guinea. She stated that it looked funny and very skinny and moved weird-like. ", Source:https://web.archive.org/web/20210225014002/http://garyopit.com/64-thylacine-sightings/, "During April 1967 sightings of a tiger were being made at Putty Road farms, particularly in the Howes Valley area, where some poultry had been claimed snatched by one, perhaps two of these creatures. Source: Gilroy, Rex. The document includes detailed accounts of alleged close encounters with the mysterious predator across the northern and western regions of the state. He was certain that it was not a cat, fox or dog. "On the night of Tuesday 22nd February 1972 at 10.15pm, I was with a woman friend, being driven along the Great Western Highway just south of Blackheath to my home at Katoomba. ", "18th November, 1997, 9 a.m. North Tumbulgum; Hogans Rainforest Nature NSW / Qld border, Jan and two other family members observed on their property a striped dog-like animal with a head almost like a kangaroo and stripes continuing onto the long stiff tail. I had slowed for a couple of hundred rabbits and was just starting up again in my old morris minor 1000 when I came at slow speed, 15mph in 1977 upon a second group and right in the middle was a young tasmanian tiger with a poined head, kangaroo like fur and a long thin tail it sat facing me mesmerized by the lights as were the rabbits. Feral predator-free areas are being established to save a range of endangered marsupials. Long, distinctive stripes cover its back and tail, which is inflexible and could be dragged along the ground. ", "8th March 2008, Frazer drive, Tweed Heads; Joel contacted me at the ABC Radio station and stated I was travelling on Frazer drive in Tweed Heads, near the Tweed Heights turn off, at 11.40 p.m. and saw this creature lopping across the road with its tail straight out behind it. In 2018, three cyclists said they witnessed a thylacine crossing the road in front of them. "November 1997, Upper Durobby Creek; in the foothills of the Macpherson Ranges, Dennis, a neighbour of Jan, phoned my Wildlife Talkback programme to describe a similar animal. ", "Early 2008 late 2007, Repentance Creek Rd at the Minyon Falls turnoff. It had the strangest tailvery long, like a broom pole. ", "25th February 2006, Saturday night, 11 pm, Palm Avenue in Mullumbimby; Kali saw a strange animal running across the road. Years later I mentioned it to locals in Wee Waa when I worked there as a doctor. It's also. (2017). Does the Tasmanian tiger still exist? ", "One lady in particular swears she saw one near a supermarket in Brighton Le Sands N.S.W. They were seen shortly after by a motorist driving on Hawkesbury Road through Winmalee about 9pm, when they crossed the road to be caught in his headlights.". Suddenly we saw sitting in the road ahead an animal which at first we took to be a dog. ", "During September 1983, I organised a major search for evidence of living Thylacines in the Wollongambie Wilderness, east of Lithgow. The narrator says the Tasmanian tiger is a "dangerous opponent" who is no longer able to live in its natural habitat. Fascinating new documents have revealed a series of reported sightings of the marsupial, which was declared extinct more than 80 years ago. But the tinny-sipping South Australian Tassie tiger hunter, who filmed the clip wandering around northern Tasmanian bushland, was quickly shutdown, with the museum there ruling the photos were likely of a pademelon. "On Sunday 15th June 2003, about 8.30pm to 845pm, Robyn Simon was driving with a friend,Rebecca Jackson, on Acacia Street past Katoomba Golf Course, towards its junction with Cliff Drive. We live in Upper Wilsons Creek and our property backs onto Mt Jerusalem National Park. He thought it couldn't be true, Christian said of his dad, who he described as your typical Australian bushy. A Gold Coast resident has been left dumbfounded after receiving an abusive letter from a neighbour that appeared to threaten her dog. After about 5 min I took off again south desperatly trying to get my head around what I had just seen 20 min south of Broken Hill!! Its fur was a tan colour, and the body stripes were blacky-brown. The Thylacinidae family was a diverse group of approximately ten different species of dog-like, carnivorous marsupials. It was not a dog sound she madenothing like it. Its fur was very short, about 15 mm long, of a greyish to light brown colour and was not at all mangy. Newcastle Herald, 8 March. When we saw the skin pegged out, my father was surprised because he had not seen a live one for perhaps 40 years and believed there were none left alive.". The encounter lasted in full no more than 15 seconds. ", "6th February 2006, Mullumbimby, Left Bank Road, Sunday morning, 6:10 am; Alisha and her mother were going to the market and when they pulled out of Yankee Creek Road and went round the bend they saw a strange animal that was too big to be a cat and that was not a dog or a fox and it had stripes across the back, rounded ears & a long stiff tail.". They said that the depth of impression of the tracks suggested an animal of at least 75 lb weight. Had it been left by a thylacine? A Sydney driver found a crowd around his vehicle and an unsettling note when he returned to his car after shopping. Spooky to see the drawing on the web site and realise what it might be!", "the tasmania tiger is thriving around bilambil Hieghts Inner bushland, it was spotted only a couple of weeks ago by 2 well educated people driving up hogans road, it ran across the road into the bushland, description was a huge tan brown dog cat like creature with black stripes down it side, they said it didnt look like a dog and was much bigger but did resemble a big cat panther like but simarlarities of both, thet said it was fast but they still got plenty of vision of this creature", "During May 2010 a female Thylacine and cub were seen moving through bushland not far from Wombeyan Caves by campers. He stopped and had a look but the animal had run off unhurt.". It reminded them of a Fossa or a civet and definitely was not a fox, dog or cat. Last February, two visitors claimed an animal with a "stiff tail and striped back" wandered in front of their car at Corinna in the island's west. (1968). A report made to Naturalist/Cryptozoologist Gary Opit, through his popular Wildlife Talkback radio show. That same year, a government plant biologist saw what they believed to be a Tasmanian tiger ( Thylacinus cynocephalus ), or thylacine, from 30 meters (100 feet) away in a remote area. Or, had it found its way up the cliffs via a steep slope, like the Devils Hole, to establish itself, somewhere in a lair deep in the fern and bush, choked cliff tops on the western side of Cliff Drive, It could have come from the Neck in the first place, up the waterfall gully from Megalong. In December 2006 at 9.30 a.m. she again saw the same animal with three young cubs chasing and playing together on the road. It became obvious to us that a colony of from 6 to 8 of these elusive creatures existed in the gully.