The Tasmanian tiger, pictured in captivity in about 1930, has not been seen for decades

From his solitary home on the fringes of the ancient forests of northeast Tasmania Neil Waters vividly remembers the moonlit night an animal not seen in about 80 years appeared on the dirt road outside.

It was, he said with a sharp certainty, a juvenile thylacine, commonly called a Tasmanian tiger: a large, sandy-coloured creature with distinctive dark stripes, the head of a wolf and a long stiff tail.

“It came running past the window, travelling along and took off down the track,” Mr Waters, 51 , told The Times. “It disappeared in the darkness.”

Since that winter night in 2014 the former horticulturalist has surrendered his life to proving that thylacines still roam the wilderness of Australia’s huge southern island.

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