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Apparent sightings of the Tasmanian tiger in northern Australia have sparked a search for the long-extinct carnivore.
The wolf-like predators were the largest known carnivorous marsupial to have existed alongside human society, but the last known specimen died in a zoo on the island of Tasmania itself in 1936.
However, based on eyewitness evidence provided by a tourism operator and a former park ranger, 50 camera traps will be set up across the Cape York Peninsula in the hope of finding a surviving population.
Professor Bill Laurance will be heading the survey, which will take place across remote locations in Australia's largest wilderness area.
He told the Telegraph: “All observations of putative thylacines to date have been at night, and in one case four animals were observed at close range, about 20 feet away, with a spotlight.
“We have cross-checked the descriptions we received of eye shine colour, body size and shape, animal behaviour, and other attributes, and these are inconsistent with known attributes of other large-bodied species in north Queensland such as dingoes, wild dogs or feral pigs.”
Read more here. (Independent UK)
The wolf-like predators were the largest known carnivorous marsupial to have existed alongside human society, but the last known specimen died in a zoo on the island of Tasmania itself in 1936.
However, based on eyewitness evidence provided by a tourism operator and a former park ranger, 50 camera traps will be set up across the Cape York Peninsula in the hope of finding a surviving population.
Professor Bill Laurance will be heading the survey, which will take place across remote locations in Australia's largest wilderness area.
He told the Telegraph: “All observations of putative thylacines to date have been at night, and in one case four animals were observed at close range, about 20 feet away, with a spotlight.
“We have cross-checked the descriptions we received of eye shine colour, body size and shape, animal behaviour, and other attributes, and these are inconsistent with known attributes of other large-bodied species in north Queensland such as dingoes, wild dogs or feral pigs.”
Read more here. (Independent UK)
