Two Recent Possible Sightings of Tasmanian Tigers

What makes the two sightings particularly interesting is that they occurred in close proximity on the the southern tip of mainland Australia and within a few months of one another. The first was in December and the witness, RV park owner Tony Holgate, also made mention of a possible sighting by park guests a few weeks prior.

The Mercury - Was it a Tassie tiger ... but in Victoria?

IT wasn’t a dog. And it was too big to be a cat. Venus Bay Caravan Park owner Tony Holgate knew exactly what was staring back at him — a Tasmanian tiger. In what is set to reignite the debate over whether the marsupial really is extinct, the 67-year-old said he was convinced after a dawn encounter just three weeks ago on the rambling coast of South Gippsland in Victoria.

“It was just sitting there looking back at me ... I knew what it was,’’ Mr Holgate said. “It was with about half a dozen kangaroos and it ran off with them into the scrub.’’

The sun was just starting to rise as Mr Holgate conducted an inspection of the holiday park he has run with wife Mary for the past two years.

Admittedly, the bit about being "with" half a dozen kangaroos seems a little suspicious to me as thylacines were reported to have been ambush predators (rather than pursuit) and kangaroos are believed to be larger prey than a thylacine would have been able to handle based on studies of their jaws/bites.

The Great Southern Star - Tasmanian Tiger sighted at Inverloch

“Last Wednesday at about 10.30pm, I was driving along Ullathorne Road when it crossed the road in front of me,” he said. “First of all, I thought it was a fox or a cat, but as it moved off the bitumen on to the green verge, I realised it was dog sized, about the same as an Alsatian.”

Mr Murphy said as he got closer to the animal, its tail captured his attention.

“It was the long, straight tail, which could have been a metre long. It was straight out, white and strong looking,” he said.

Because he was in his car, Mr Murphy was unable to see the creature’s head, but he did recognise one of the Tasmanian tiger’s most distinctive traits.

“The thing that really made me twig was, as I drove past it, I saw the stripes down its side and onto its flank,” he said. “I thought to myself, I have seen something exceptional here, so I turned around and went back, but it had disappeared.”

Mr Murphy said in the past, he has heard two accounts of Tasmanian tiger sightings, both from reliable sources. “After seeing one myself, I thought I would report it so other people can keep a lookout,” he said.

From his description, it does sound like a possible thylacine though the animals are thought to have already been extinct on the Australian mainland several hundred years before Europeans arrived.

Here's a map from Cryptomundo with the locations of these possible sightings marked:



Alas, there were no pictures from either sighting but still, a little something to keep alive the hope of the discovery of a surviving population of thylacines.

a reply to: theantediluvian

It would be REALLY cool if these guys were still with us - it certainly is possible. I'd like to believe they're out there - especially when considering how quickly humans are extincting other amazing species ...

a reply to: theantediluvian

Good find. This is really neat. It has always intrigued me about sightings and specimens of supposedly extinct animals like the thylacine and coelacanth fish, both of which don't seem too unbelievable to still exist in very limited numbers.

a reply to: FamCore

It would be REALLY cool if these guys were still with us - it certainly is possible.

Agreed. I think most people with an interest in such things would rank thylacines at the top of the list of most likely to (still) exist.

I'd like to believe they're out there - especially when considering how quickly humans are extincting other amazing species...

Me too. It's sadly ironic that when that thylacines were slaughtered as nuisance animals and now that they're extinct (or hopefully not), there's so much interest in them.

a reply to: UnBreakable

Coelacanths are very much alive and one was actually filmed live last year — I believe the first time one was filmed in nature (skip to the very end):



There's actually two species known to science now and they're both endangered (one I believe is critically endangered with a population estimated in the hundreds). Apparently they have one of the longest gestation periods of any vertebrae at almost 3 years which of course makes it particularly hard for populations to recover from losses.

a reply to: theantediluvian

I remember as a kid my Grandmother always used to tell me stories about her family members and friends who had seen Thylacines in east Gippsland, she was convinced they still survived there and the possibility always fascinated me... It is possible I suppose, since there's still a lot of think forest in that region.

But personally, I think south western Tasmania is the most likely place where they still exist... Its just a massive area of (mostly) inaccessible thick forest.


Its so disappointing how we just massacred such a fascinating and primitive creature to (probably) total extinction, without documenting or learning barely a single thing about it.

I am one of those that believes the Tassie absolutely still runs free in the wild and hasn't been completely annihilated.

I really hope these sightings really are of the tiger and not some mis identification.

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
a reply to: theantediluvian

I remember as a kid my Grandmother always used to tell me stories about her family members and friends who had seen Thylacines in east Gippsland, she was convinced they still survived there and the possibility always fascinated me... It is possible I suppose, since there's still a lot of think forest in that region.

But personally, I think south western Tasmania is the most likely place where they still exist... Its just a massive area of (mostly) inaccessible thick forest.


Its so disappointing how we just massacred such a fascinating and primitive creature to (probably) total extinction, without documenting or learning barely a single thing about it.

This would be it, really.
I live in Tasmania, and the Southwest is genuinely inaccessible - parts of it aren't even well mapped yet.
It wouldn't surprise me if there was a small population still extant down there.

You also need to take whatever you read about thylacines with a grain of salt. We really know very little about them - and in fact debate still rages over whether or not the last thylacine held in captivity was male or female (his/her name was Benjamin - the story goes that 'he' was thought to be male until after 'his' death, where they discovered that she was female). We know that little about them... and were just THAT uninformed when the order was given to cull them.

For decades they told us that cougars did not roam through the plains states in the US, but there have always been reliable accounts of sightings and prints by locals.

It wasn't until very recently that actual photo evidence could be captured and not long after that a cougar strolled through suburban KC.

Just because we think something isn't there doesn't mean it isn't or couldn't be. Australia has a lot of big empty spaces. Plenty of room to hide.

I really hope they were Tasmanian Tigers. It's sad that man has killed off so many strange, beautiful and exotic species. I'm keeping hope alive. *Fingers crossex*

I want so badly for the thylacine to be re-discovered and then protected, the world loses a bit of magic every time we lose a species.

a reply to: FairyThorne

And the magic that is Willem Dafoe's smile.

a reply to: Awen24

I wouldn't be surprised if some are roaming around the bottom end of VIC as much of it is dense forest. I've never been to Tassie but I hear that it's mostly uncleared forest.

a reply to: AboveDogSecretI hope there are some still living,sad thing to lose a species like them.There are certainly some extinct animals still living,just hidden.I watched a Female Ivory bill woodpecker for 20 minutes in the early 90`s,It was in a creek bottom in east Tenn and they were supposed to not ever been there-though many old residents remember them,so tigers also are likely in places the experts won`t look

I firmly believe we are close to rediscovering the tassie tiger both on tasmania and on the mainland.

Although some of the video footage appears to be foxes