Chasing the tiger with stealth, smarts and science

Updated

Decades after the last captive thylacine died, the hunt for the Tasmanian tiger is very much alive.

In its prime, the thylacine was at the top of the food chain on the continent of Australia and its small island to the south, Tasmania.

But, soon after European settlement its numbers sharply declined.

The last known thylacine died at a Hobart zoo in 1936, reportedly after being locked out of its enclosure on a cold night.

The date of its death, September 7, is now commemorated as Threatened Species Day.

But rumours of its continued existence somewhere in Tasmania's vast wilderness persist.

Even today, the state's parks department muses on its website as to whether or not the animal could still be alive.

"Although the species is now considered to be 'probably extinct' … sightings provide some hope that the thylacine may still exist," its official entry on the thylacine reads, before concluding the lack of hard evidence means such hope is likely in vain.

And while some of those spearheading the search believe the animal known colloquially as the Tasmanian tiger is still roaming the wilderness, others are sceptical.

Modern-day thylacine hunters

Photos exist of some of the last thylacines, displayed as trophies by those who killed them.

Today's pursuit is more scientific in nature; some prefer to use the old bush ways, others utilise technology.

Col Bailey, veteran thylacine hunter, doesn't think much of the gadgetry employed by today's Tasmanian tiger enthusiasts.

Camouflage gear, motion-sensing cameras and other technology to help detect and capture evidence of a thylacine in the wild is yet to deliver the goods — although for a fevered moment in 2017, it seemed like that was about to change.

The so-called Booth-Richardson Tiger Team had called a press conference to announce they were releasing footage from one of 14 motion-sensing cameras placed in dense forest near Maydena, in the state's south.

Greg Booth, his father Joe, and Adrian 'Richo' Richardson were adamant the creature moving in their vision was a thylacine.

They had even engaged a law firm to oversee proceedings at the media scrum and presumably begin negotiations for further coverage opportunities.

Bailey was one of the people was invited to view the Booth-Richardson video before its big reveal.

"I disappointed them by telling him it was a tiger quoll, not a thylacine," he said.

"It didn't go down very well, but you've got to speak your mind. Good luck to them anyway."

Despite the conviction on display from the Booth-Richardson team, the blurry apparition showcased by the men was not hailed as proof, with a consensus forming it was more likely a quoll or feral cat.

But Bailey, who describes himself as "coming up on 82, a bit long in the tooth", is a believer.

He says he had own thylacine encounter in Tasmania almost three decades after he first began searching in 1967.

It was 1995, and Bailey was camped alone in a valley in the island's south-west when he says he came face to face with a tiger.

"I was standing there relieving myself, having a wee … it walked out of the ferns, almost straight into me," he says.

He recalls the thylacine "wanted to get away from me as fast as it could", but he followed it for some distance into the bush.

"I got within about 15 feet of it, enough to have a good look at it," he says.

Far from rushing back to tell others of his encounter, Bailey did the opposite.

"I didn't say anything to anybody for 17 years," he says.

"If I'd gone to the newspapers every idiot under the sun would have been up there, hunting it, some would shoot it on sight, some would want to make money out of it."

"I wanted to protect the animal from that kind of outcome."

Bailey, the author of several books on the animal and his pursuit of it, says he has little faith in the modern methods of thylacine hunting.

"Camo? I've worn it on occasion and it didn't get me anywhere," he says.

"I used to spray myself with tea tree oil, to smell like the bush — my dad taught me that," he says, before offering more advice.

"Smell the least like a human as possible — if you smoke and you have body odour and wear all this flash clothing, you don't stand a chance, the animal knows you're coming a mile off."

If tigers are still out there, as Bailey believes, it's speculated they'll be in the mountainous western half of Tasmania — where the cooler, wetter climate and ample wilderness could still harbour this fugitive from white colonisation.

But experts aren't convinced.

"Even if there did exist a few remaining individuals, it is unlikely that such a tiny population would be able to maintain a sufficient genetic diversity to allow for the viable perpetuation of the species in the long term," Tasmania's parks department writes.

Kathryn Medlock, a senior curator of vertebrate zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery says the species "iconic" status is part of what keeps the the speculation over its fate alive.

"Thylacine searches always create headline news and have created a mystery surrounding the survival of the species," she says.

But she adds "there has been no physical evidence of thylacines in Tasmania since 1936".

'The three Hs'

The three-man team of Thylacine Research Unit represent the new breed of Tasmanian tiger enthusiasts.

Bill Flowers, an animal handler and artist, says he and his TRU colleagues, Chris Coupland and Warren Darragh, have "open minds", but are of the opinion the thylacine is "most likely extinct".

Using motion-sensing cameras, microphones with parabolic reflectors, night-vision, drones and sound analysis, the trio are about a sober analysis of the evidence, he says.

Both Flowers and Coupland have training and backgrounds in wildlife caring and handling carnivorous marsupials, while Darrah is ex-army.

"Warren has a military background and survivalist skills, he is good getting us out of a fix," Flowers says.

"We got lost once, I don't like to talk about that," he adds with a laugh.

The TRU have a criteria by which they determine whether to launch an investigation, Flowers explains.

"We have what Warren calls the three Hs: recent human interaction, as in a sighting, habitat that is good for thylacines, and historical records of thylacines in the area. When we get the three together, we usually are go for an investigation."

The unit "went to one at Hatfield, couple of years ago, which seemed pretty good", Mr Flowers says.

"The guy had a fairly credible sounding sighting, the habitat seemed good for it and, historically, thylacines had come out of that area."

Still, nothing concrete would come of the outing.

"You can't argue with people who say they saw one," Mr Flowers says. "I believe they believe."

He recounts his own experience in the field on a dark night in rural Tasmania, when — for just a moment — he thought a thylacine was nearby.

"The boys wanted to recreate a sighting, so they had me on the side of a road, while they drove by," he says.

With the TRU vehicle down the road some distance, Flowers says he "heard the yipping".

"I thought, 'gee it sounds like a large animal, this is what people are hearing when they say they've heard a thylacine'."

Then, Flowers says, he realised the sound was not unlike that made by sugar gliders, especially if they were inside a hollow log.

"That's the thing," he says. "When people who believe go out determined to find something, they usually find what they are looking for.

"The mind can play tricks, there's a whole field of study on false memory where people believe they've seen something they actually haven't.

"It is part of the human survival system is to read a situation quickly, and the mind fills in the gaps."

Despite his reasoning, he's still reluctant to state unequivocally the species is not out there — somewhere.

"It is all very well to sit back in a comfortable house and say 'they don't exist', but when you get out in the wilderness you realise 'wow, this is really vast'," he says.

An extensive search of the island, using people "with experience with carnivorous marsupials", would cost a "truckload of money", Flowers says — money "probably better spent on other species that need our help".

'We played God'

Any accusation of man tampering with the natural order of things does not sit well with Professor Michael Archer, who is one of a number of scientists making advances in the realm of de-extinction.

Professor Archer, whose Lazarus Project is endeavouring to bring back to life the gastric brooding frog via genome engineering, jokes he will be "really angry" if he does not get to pat a regenerated thylacine before he "kicks the bucket".

Progress his team at the University of New South Wales is making, along with other scientists in the field, means he "can't imagine it taking more than 10 to 20 years" before thylacines are back, he says.

Mention the scene from Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park, in which Sir Richard Attenborough's character is admonished for bringing dinosaurs back from the dead, and you get short shrift from Archer.

"The adage of 'scientists [were] so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should' is ridiculous," he says.

"We played God when we exterminated the thylacine, we are trying to play 'smart human' ... to undo what we did while we were playing God."

He points to the 1995 restoration of wolves to Yellowstone National Park and the changes to the area's ecology as a result, saying a similar reintroduction could occur with the thylacine.

"After wolves were destroyed in Yellowstone, the system fell into chaos, everything began to collapse … they were reintroduced and everything is back and working well. With the thylacine, as our king of beasts, you would see exactly the same," he says.

"We are probably witnessing the beginnings of a cascade of extinctions; when you take out a key species out of an ecosystem, sometimes you don't know how tied up it is to the wellbeing of other species."

Archer believes the spread of the deadly facial tumour in Tasmanian devils is "probably" due to the extinction of the thylacine, which he says kept the devil population in check.

"Prior to that result, the thylacine and devils would have competed for food, the thylacine population would have meant there were fewer devils, in isolated populations," he says.

"If the disease had popped up, which I can be almost positive it did, it would have burnt out before there was risk it spread throughout the island."

It might come as a surprise that Archer, who operates at science's cutting edge, counts Bailey — the old school thylacine hunter — as one of his "favourite Tasmanian friends".

"I've walked in the bush with Col, not seeing anything, but talked a lot about it," he says.

"I have enormous respect for him. He is one of the strongest advocates for the thylacine still existing."

Archer says he's had his own experience of believing he saw one thing which turned out to be another.

"At Margaret River, I thought I saw a Tasmanian devil … which I then watched as it transformed into a black and white pig," he recalls.

"I know how easy it is to have a sighting and have your brain collaborate to mislead you."

He says members of the public occasionally "send me droppings from Tasmania … and say they saw a thylacine produce them".

"When they turn out to be Tasmanian devil droppings, the people who get these results are somewhere between angry and disappointed."

So, does the professor believe thylacines still roam the wilds of Tasmania's west?

"It's a very hard question. Most scientists think it is extinct, there have been so many expeditions," he trails off.

If Bailey does manage to find the creature, Archer's door will be open.

"We have a deal, if he catches a thylacine first, he has promised to send me some good tissue. If we are able to bring a thylacine back, I'll release in his backyard."

Now, that would be a press conference not to miss.

Topics: animals, human-interest, animal-science, animal-behaviour, science-and-technology, genetics, ethics, community-and-society, zoology, zoos, tas, hobart-7000, maydena-7140, launceston-7250, mawbanna-7321

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