To catch a Tasmanian tiger
The below article appeared in the Sunday Indian on 30 November 2008.
I was invited to write about my expedition to Tasmania in search of the thylacine.
Chris Rehberg shares the results of his quest for the elusive Thylacine...
To catch a Tasmanian tiger! Wildlife biologist Nick Mooney once said that something like gold-fever overcomes people infatuated with the Tasmanian tiger. I think I know first-hand what he was talking about! The Tasmanian tiger (or thylacine) was Australia's largest carnivorous marsupial. It looked like a wolf, had stripes like a zebra, and like a kangaroo, carried its young in a pouch. Sadly, it would seem that its only trace we have left are a few silent black and white films, photos, artworks, stories and museum specimens. The Tasmanian tiger has entered the realm of folklore and myth. Or has it?
Several times in my childhood, I'd be fixated with the prospect that the thylacine might live on in the wilderness of Tasmania. What could seem more reasonable? The island state is one third protected in national parks and world heritage areas ? surely ample room for a few hundred dog-sized animals to seek refuge? After all, there are tens of thousands of Tasmanian devils in that state, yet you'll be lucky if you see one while driving around. Living in Sydney (and not Tasmania) makes it awfully hard to search for thylacines, so I turned my efforts to the area most accessible: research.
Trawling through books and websites, chat forums, community groups and museums, I began searching for any evidence that the thylacine might be alive today. Although hundreds of Tasmanian sightings have been reported since its accepted extinction in 1936, what was more surprising was that this number was just about matched by mainland sightings. In 2004, the Western Australian government released a report providing data derived from some 203 alleged sightings in that state. A thylacine mummy discovered there in 1966 was initially assumed to be only a few years old based on its pristine condition. Carbon dating eventually put it at 4,600?4,700 years. Then there was the theory that the dating was tarnished by groundwater, which had soaked through the carcass. In South Australia, in the late 1960s, there were a spate of sightings as farming land was opened up in the south-east of that state. Then, in 1973, some of the most intriguing film footage was captured of an animal running through a camp-ground with a gait that can only be described as inelegant. If only there were film footage from the 1930s of a running thylacine to make a comparison!
Moving east, Victoria too has its share of sightings with one report suggesting sightings of up to 63 tigers in a state park merely 25km from the capital city. In New South Wales there seems to be a hot-spot on the far north coast with details of 50 sightings being published recently. In 1995, intriguing film footage was again captured, this time in Queensland. This film, together with the 1973 footage from South Australia, is for me the most tangible evidence of Tasmanian tigers alive on the mainland today. The 1990s also heard reports of tigers living in remote regions of Irian Jaya, Indonesia.
In 2005, German tourists Klaus Emmerichs and Birgit Jansen captured two digital photographs they claim show a live Tasmanian tiger. Skeptics quickly dismissed the photos, stating that they were almost identical to a photograph taken in the 1930s. However, these photos became a turning point in my search for the Tasmanian tiger. Having two photos meant that you could build a three dimensional model of the scene being photographed. It would have to be a very clever hoax to produce two photos that show a three-dimensional scene consistently; unless, as critics would say, you are photographing a real cardboard cut-out.
Spending countless hours performing measurements and overlays, holding phone calls with Klaus and email discussions with experts, I had to conclude that no photo will be sufficient to prove the thylacine still exists. However, the analysis led to the birth of my website, "Where Light Meets Dark", dedicated to examining evidence for rare fauna.
What began with tiger fever has grown to encompass devils, quolls, wallabies, potoroos ? all bizarre both in name and in nature. There are still gems to be found: a rabbit-like marsupial called Gilbert's potoroo was rediscovered after a 115-year absence; Tasmanian devils have turned up ? alive and dead ? five times during the 1990s and one book presents evidence for Tasmanian tigers alive and well on the mainland in the 1800s. To catch a tiger ? on film at least, please!