Tasmanian Tiger The Tragic Story of the Thylacine

About this book

The tragic story of how ignorance, fear and lack of care led to the disappearance of the famous Tasmanian tiger. This updated edition includes the latest research on whether it could ever be cloned and returned to the wild.

Is it still out there? People claim to keep seeing it still.

Once the world's largest marsupial predator, the Tasmanian tiger roamed the Australian mainland. Then confined to Tasmania for thousands of years, it was deliberately hunted down by settlers through fear, ignorance and greed. But was it a savage sheep killer or a shy and fussy nocturnal feeder? Did the last tiger die in a Hobart zoo in 1936, or did a few survive in the wild? And did it really drink its victims' blood?

A number of Australian species have miraculously reappeared after being labelled as extinct. Perhaps the tiger is still with us. And if it's not, can it really be brought back by cloning and returned to the wild?

Contents

Preface to the second edition
Preface to the first edition
Acknowledgements

1. What's in a name?
2. In the beginning: evolution
3. At the end: extinction
4. 'Pathetically little is known'
5. A rugged and determined front
6. Before the fall: Lutruwita
7. A land in need of taming
8. Tall tales, tiger men and bounties
9. Capturing tigers by their tales
10. 'Them bloody useless things' 1888-1930
11. A bad finish: 7 September 1936
12. A lost object of awe
13. We wake up too late
14. The tiger in commerce and art
15. Cloning
16. Sightings and the science of survival

Notes
Select bibliography
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

David Owen is the author of 19 fiction and nonfiction titles, including Tasmanian Devil and Shark: In Peril in the Sea. He is the Official Secretary of the Governor of Tasmania.

David Pemberton is a wildlife biologist and former manager of the Tasmanian Government's Save the Tasmanian Devil Program. He is co-editor of Saving the Tasmanian Devil and co-author with David Owen of Tasmanian Devil.