PHOTO CREDIT, OPPOSITE PAGE: MATTHEW NEWTON; THIS PAGE:
THE MAMMALS OF AUSTRALIA
BY JOHN GOULD
t about nine o’clock on a 1993 spring night, a
truck was travelling eastwards along the Lyell
Highway through the Tasmanian Wilderness
World Heritage Area. Half a kilometre past the
Franklin River bridge, the driver* negotiated
a bend and then a rise. At the top of the rise,
his headlights lit up the dead-straight
roadway as bright as day.
That’s when he saw it. As he reported the next day, a
dog-like animal was crossing the road about 100m ahead.
Coming closer and slowing down, he noticed dark verti-
cal stripes on its brown body. In the driver’s mind there
was no doubt: it was a Tasmanian tiger, a thylacine. But
was this possible? The species – the world’s largest marsu-
pial carnivore of recent times – was officially extinct.
Before the truck reached it, the animal turned back to
the roadside. The whole sighting lasted perhaps six sec-
onds. Fast-forward to 2016. I’m standing where, according
to the truck driver, the animal left the road. Behind me is
dense bush; in front, on the other side of the road, is a
sweep of button grass plain called Wombat Glen. Beside
me is Nick Mooney - lean, grizzled, ebullient and eloquent.
Nick was a wildlife officer for the Tasmanian Parks and
Wildlife Service until 2009 and is now an independent
wildlife biologist. He has investigated thylacine sightings
A
for 35 years and is an acknowledged authority on the
species. The truck driver’s sighting was one of his cases.
“He was a normal truckie without the slightest vested
interest in faking it,” Nick says. “He was totally convinced
about what he saw and thought we should know.”
After visiting the site with the driver, Nick returned
with a dog, with which he retraced the mystery animal’s
steps to calculate how long it was in the truckie’s sight.
“His reported timing almost exactly matched what I
worked out with the dog. That shows he was a good
observer and hadn’t exaggerated,” Nick explains.
The sighting followed a familiar pattern. Most sightings
happen at night and on roads, because roads attract animals
and these days there are more people on roads than in the
bush. They usually happen as a vehicle rounds a corner,
catching an animal by surprise. Many reports are uncon-
vincing, but a few give the experts pause. In March,
biologists from James Cook University announced a new
study to investigate two plausible sightings in Cape York,
raising the tantalising possibility that a thylacine popu-
lation survives on the mainland.
The Franklin River area produced several reports in about
1990, Nick says. “There were four or five on this stretch
of road. There was a truckie, a tourist, a guy on a motorbike
early in the morning... They didn’t know each other, which
adds credibility. One can be sensibly sceptical but I’m
always reluctant to dismiss any half-decent report.”
Zoologist John Gould published
this illustration of thylacines in
his 1863 book The Mammals
of Australia. He predicted the
species’ imminent extinction.
76 Australian Geographic
* LIKE MANY PEOPLE WHO REPORT SIGHTINGS TO AUTHORITIES, THIS WITNESS WANTED
TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS.
