When Did The Tasmanian Tiger Go Extinct? It May Have Survived Up To 1980-2000s, New Study Suggests

A new study has put a range of dates on when the Tasmanian tiger went extinct. There is a possibility that the species may have survived longer, going extinct between 1980s and 2000s.

The thylacine, popularly known as the Tasmanian tiger, was a large carnivorous marsupial that hunted for wallabies and birds at night. It existed on the Australian mainland and New Guinea, and was largely concentrated in Australia’s Tasmania state before its extinction.

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One of the last known specimens of the thylacine, popularly known as the Tasmanian tiger, died in captivity in 1936. However, that did not necessarily mark the extinction of the species, because several instances of Tasmanian tigers being spotted were reported in subsequent years.

Now, a new study has put a range of dates on when the Tasmanian tiger went extinct. It has been published in the journal ‘Science of the Total Environment’.

Using a database of recorded sightings and making calculations on this data, a team led by scientists from the University of Tasmania estimated that extinction likely occurred between the 1940s and 1970s, but that there is also a possibility that the species may have survived longer, going extinct between 1980s and 2000s. In fact, the researchers said, there is a small possibility that some individuals are surviving even today.

What is the Tasmanian tiger?

The thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) was a large carnivorous marsupial that hunted for wallabies and birds at night. It existed on the Australian mainland and New Guinea, and was largely concentrated in Australia’s Tasmania state before its extinction.

The thylacine was slender, with a face like a fox, and was about 1-1.3 metres long including its tail, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Its fur was similar in colour to that of the tiger, and it had dark stripes on its back, which led to the popular name ‘Tasmanian tiger’.

In time, the thylacine disappeared from the mainland. Part of the reason is believed to be competition with the dingo, the wild dog. European settlers in Australia also widely hunted the thylacine because they considered it a threat to their sheep. In 1936, the last known living thylacine died in a private zoo in Hobart, Tasmania’s capital city.

The new findings

The new study used a database of 1,237 observational records from Tasmania, dating from 1910 onwards, and used this data and modelling techniques to map the species' decline and eventual extinction.

 “We found that the Thylacine's distribution shrank rapidly after a period when bounties were provided for animal skins across Tasmania (1888-1909), and that the most likely location of the last surviving subpopulation was in the south-western region,” a press release from the University of Tasmania quoted Professor Barry Brook, who led the study, as saying.

The results of the modelling showed that extinction likely occurred “within four decades after the last capture, so around the 1940s to 1970s”, he was quoted as saying.

 “But we found, through further analysis, that extinction might have been as recent as the late 1980s to early 2000s, with a very small chance that it still persists in the remote south-western wilderness areas.”

Apart from shedding new light on what may have happened to the species, the study also provides a useful method for search efforts for other species whose status is uncertain, Brook was quoted as saying.

The release quoted co-author Dr Stephen Sleightholme from the International Thylacine Specimen Database as saying: “It (the thylacine) has captivated the public's imagination for decades and inspired many efforts to prove its ongoing existence. Our study shows that there is still much to learn about its history and ecology.”