Tasmanians seek a species thought lost

MOLE CREEK, Australia -- For years, Trudy Richards searched the forests of Tasmania for the elusive creature with the head of a wolf, the pouch of a kangaroo, and the stripes of a tiger.

She put motion-sensor cameras and audio recorders in the forest. She built sand traps to capture a footprint. She trekked through the woods, her camera at the ready. She spent hours on stakeouts -- all in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the ancient thylacine.

And then, she says, she finally saw one. According to her account, a Tasmanian tiger, as the creature is commonly known, walked into her campsite one winter evening before midnight. Richards says her camera was out of reach but insists there was no mistaking the animal's distinctive black stripes.

There is just one problem. The thylacine has been listed as extinct since 1986 -- 50 years after the last known specimen died in captivity at Tasmania's Hobart Zoo. Although some scientists say the species might have survived into the 1980s, there has been no confirmed sighting in 68 years. Scientists say the species vanished from mainland Australia thousands of years ago.

Such negativity does not deter Richards and other tiger hunters. Tasmania, a rugged island of 460,000 people south of the Australian mainland, is known for its independent streak, and many here reject the verdict of science. For them, the survival of the world's largest marsupial carnivore is a matter of faith.

"They're out there," says Richards, 41, who has no scientific training and works as a clerk at a farm supply store. "They've been out there for the last 70 years. You either believe or you don't."

While they search the dense forest for evidence of a living thylacine, scientists in Sydney hope to prove that, in the Tasmanian tiger's case, extinction is not forever.

At the Australian Museum in Sydney, scientists have taken the first step in cloning the thylacine from museum exhibits and dream of creating a colony in the wild.

In 2002, they reported success in replicating thylacine DNA extracted from the body of a pup that had been preserved in alcohol, but since then the work has slowed. Some suggest that the team's biggest accomplishment has been in generating publicity for the museum.

"It's obviously a very long shot," acknowledges Don Colgan, who is heading the project.

More like a large dog than a tiger, the thylacine had a wolf-like head and jaws that opened remarkably wide. Its body was yellow-brown with black tiger-like stripes on its back and hindquarters. It had a long snout and a thick, stiff tail. The female had a pouch that opened toward the rear, an advantage in protecting the young when it moved through brush.

The thylacine was known to eat only fresh meat, unlike its closest relative, the smaller Tasmanian devil, an aggressive marsupial notorious for devouring carrion.

When European settlers introduced sheep to Tasmania in the 19th century, the thylacine found a ready source of food. Sheep farmers blamed the tiger for huge losses -- sometimes unjustly -- and the creature was soon branded a dangerous pest. In 1888, the government offered a bounty of 1 pound sterling, the equivalent of a week's wages, for each thylacine killed.

Thousands were shot, trapped, snared, clubbed, or poisoned. By 1910, the thylacine population had fallen so low that the bounty scheme was abandoned. As the creature was disappearing, museums contributed to its demise by offering large payments for specimens.

Today, the thylacine has become a Tasmanian icon. The tiger can be seen on beer bottles, billboards, postage stamps, license plates, buses, city emblems, the state's coat of arms and the logo of the Tasmanian Cricket Association. It even found its way onto a postage stamp issued by the African nation of Tanzania. Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service biologist Nick Mooney has spent more than two decades fielding reports of thylacine sightings and following up on those that appeared the most credible.

In 1982, he led one of the biggest official tiger searches after park ranger Hans Naarding reported seeing a thylacine close enough to count 12 stripes on its back. Mooney's team scoured northwestern Tasmania for a year without finding a trace of the animal. Today, Mooney does not rule out the possibility that the thylacine still exists, but believes it is highly unlikely.

He has analyzed more than 700 reported sightings and sees a similarity to reported sightings of UFOs. Often, the reports are of brief encounters on a highway at dusk. Many truly believe they have seen a thylacine, he says, but eyewitness accounts are often unreliable.

The disappearance of the species has spawned a new breed of Tasmanian adventurer -- the thylacine hunter. Often secretive and solitary, they distrust one another, but believe in the beleaguered tiger's ability to survive against all odds.

One of the foremost hunters is Col Bailey, 66, an affable retired landscape gardener who has spent more than 30 years searching for the tiger. He wrote a book, "Tiger Tales," a collection of stories of purported thylacine sightings and old-timers' accounts of the animal.

At his home in New Norfolk, his den is devoted to the creature. Old photos of thylacines, drawings of the animal and photos of Bailey on the hunt adorn the walls. On a map of Tasmania, hundreds of pins show where tigers were killed long ago under the bounty system.

Bailey says his obsession with the thylacine began when he was 29, after he became convinced that he saw one outside the mainland city of Adelaide not far from his home. He theorizes that the animal he saw had escaped from a zoo decades earlier.

Bailey retired here 15 years ago to pursue his search full time.

"Maybe I am mad," jokes Bailey, whose father taught him how to find his way in the wilderness by taking him into the woods when he was 4 and leaving him.

He says he fields dozens of calls a year from people who say they have spotted a thylacine. No one has ever found the carcass of a tiger, he says, because Tasmanian devils quickly consume every dead creature in the forest.

Bailey is a bit reluctant to talk about the one he is certain he saw a couple of years ago. He was driving across Tasmania's central highlands and stopped to rest. Leaving his camera gear in the car, he walked a short distance into the woods, he says, and suddenly a thylacine ambled by. The animal was gone before he could retrieve his camera.