- The thylacine was important to the culture of the indigenous people of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea. The first modern thylacines appeared about 4 million years ago. Thylacines were frequently featured in aboriginal rock art, showing that they were a food source and are thought to have been part of ritual practices.
- Thylacines were villainized, then hunted for bounty. When European settlers arrived in Tasmania, they brought with them flocks of sheep. When a great number of sheep were attacked and killed, settlers surmised it was the thylacines’ doing. In 1888, the Tasmanian Parliament put a price of £1 on the Tasmanian tiger’s head. Although the government bounty scheme was terminated in 1909, at least 2,184 bounties were paid in total.
- There is a great thirst to see a living thylacine. Some people believe the thylacine is still out there. There are “sightings” of the Tasmanian tiger to this day. In 2005, Australian magazine The Bulletin offered a AU$1.25 million reward to anyone who can prove the extinct thylacine is well and alive.
- On September 7, 1936, the last thylacine, nicknamed “Benjamin,” died of neglect at the Hobart Zoo. The even bigger tragedy is that we had the technology to film and photograph this magnificent creature.
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