Thylacine (I want to believe)
I recently watched this documentary about folks in Australia who believe that the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) is still alive. For those living overseas, the Tasmania Tiger is the poster child of extinction in Australia. The last known animal was captured in the 1930s and died in captivity. For some reason, despite all the other extinctions that happen here, the Thylacine/Tasmanian Tiger is the most iconic species that we have killed off. You can bet, dollars to donuts, that any Australian knows about it while a variety of birds, marsupials and mammals go unnoticed.
Anyway, the folks in the documentary are fascinating: they believe, adamantly, that they have a variety of evidence and work quite hard to find more concrete and irrefutable evidence to show the rest of the country and world that this animal is still out there. Despite their own perception that they are outcasts, bullied, attacked and vilified, many of these guys ramble around the bush for most of their lives, caught in this obsession to find something many people think is gone.
It's obvious to most of us that this animal is extinct. While it's possible that some remain out there, that it's been nearly a century and that none have been photographed properly or captured says a lot. After all, if the animal was truly reclusive we probably wouldn't have successfully wiped them out. However, in researching a bit it turns out this isn't as clear cut as I thought - a research at the University of Tasmania suggests that “Contrary to expectations, the inferred extinction window is wide and relatively recent, spanning from the 1980s to the present day, with extinction most likely in the late 1990s or early 2000s,” the paper says. “While improbable, these aggregate data and modeling suggest some chance of ongoing persistence in the remote wilderness of the island.” But, let's not get our hopes up too much: "Other studies looking at the likely survival of the thylacine have come up with very different results. In 2017, Colin Carlson, an ecologist with an interest in modeling the extinction risk for species, published a paper in Conservation Biology that placed the likelihood of the thylacine still surviving at 1 in 1.6 trillion. The likely extinction date was sometime between 1936 and 1943, he wrote, “with the most optimistic scenario” suggesting it did not persist beyond the 1960s."
But more than if the Thylacine is still alive, what I really enjoy, though, is the hope that seems present in the actions of those looking for Tasmanian Tigers. There's something joyously naive and beautiful about how so many people are engaged in this futile, but kindhearted, attempt to prove that it's still out there. I've been thinking about why this struck me so much and I think it's their complete lack of cynicism or skepticism. I love that, it's so refreshing. After all, all they are doing is walking around putting up trail cameras and looking for animals. Even if they are totally wrong, where's the harm? I think I'd rather a few more wistful dreamers out in the bush and a few less fuckwits.
In my lifetime, many animals have become extinct. To some extent this is inevitable (extinction happens no matter what), but of course so much of the extinction that's occurring is because of climate change, humanity's expansion and the selfish way we hog the planet. So often recently I find myself wondering 'what will I see that my children won't be able to?' (if I have kids). There's a good chance many of the animals and places that are special to me will be functionally impossible to see outside of zoos within my lifetime. Maybe then I'll become one of the old blokes out trying to show that platypus are still out there, that bettongs did exist, that bandicoots could still be out there, that greater gliders, leadbeater's possum, honey helmeted honey eaters, etc did live, and I did see them, maybe there's some still here, wouldn't that be something?
I want to believe there's still some Thylacine out there. Not badly enough to get out there and seriously look, but just because wonder and amazement is special. When I was a kid I used to write all these stories of a protagonist discovering a lost civilisation, or an unknown group of people, I guess I like the idea of secrets and mystery. In this case, though, I know it's a pointless hope, something that allows us to wind back to clock and undo one of our many crimes, it's just not possible. What is possible is seeing what lives now and reducing our harm. I don't want the Thaylcine truthers to turn away from their hobby, it's precious and romantic in a way that I think is underrated. I'd like a lot of other folks to maybe have 10% of that love and let it guide them more often, though.
Here's hoping we're all wrong and somewhere in Tassie there exists a Tasmania tiger or twenty out there. You should watch the doco, you won't regret it. Like anything, it's amazing what people give up for a dream.
Matt