PHOTO CREDIT, OPPOSITE PAGE: MATTHEW NEWTON; THIS PAGE: PHILLIP BIGGS / FAIRFAX
T
HYLACINE SIGHTINGS HAVE been reported in
all mainland states, but Victoria is a hotspot.
One Victorian who’s contributed his fair share
is Murray McAllister, a physical education teacher at a
Melbourne secondary school. In 1998 he was writing a
novel about some children trying to prove the tiger was
alive. While researching his topic, he learnt there had been
54 thylacine sighting reports from Loch Sport, a small
township on the Gippsland Lakes.
“I decided to live the dream of the children in my
novel,” Murray tells me. “I was going to prove to the
world that those animals are still there after decades of
presumed extinction.
“I decided to go down there. On my first visit I stayed
three days and had my first sighting. So it was destiny.
I thought if I kept going there I’d eventually get what I
was after.”
Murray says he’s seen the thylacine 20 times since then
and almost trapped it once. Even so, he feels his dream
has only partly come true because, despite leaving five
top-of-the-range cameras in the bush for months, he hasn’t
captured a convincing image of his quarry.
Murray believes the only answer is to catch one. “Then
I’ll build a cage around it, take hundreds of photographs
and lots of video, get hair samples and video myself releas-
ing it,” he says. “That’ll be the evidence I need.”
In Toolangi, about 35km north of the school where
Murray teaches, lives Bernie Mace, a former industrial
scientist with a lifetime interest in natural history. While
working in Tasmania in 1966–69 he heard what he
believes are credible reports of thylacine sightings.
“I’d gone there convinced the thylacine was extinct,”
Bernie says. “But those reports persuaded me it might still
be around. That was the beginning of my journey.”
On returning to Victoria, Bernie began hearing reports
of sightings in his home state, particularly in East Gippsland.
Ever since, he has been following up the better reports in
Victoria as well as other states including Tasmania. “I’ve
been developing long-range spotlights and investing in
night-vision goggles,” he says, “and I have half-a-dozen
motion-sensor cameras.”
He’s writing a book about his 50 years of thylacine
research and is reluctant to reveal too much before
publication. However, he hints that it will contain key
evidence about the thylacine’s survival: “I’ve heard vocal-
isations over the years that convinced me something unu-
sual was around.”H
OPE IS THE fuel that powers all true believers.
But not only them. Among tiger-seekers there
are some who are not sure if the animal survives.
They keep an open mind and are more likely to question
evidence. Even so, they allow themselves to hope now
and then. Interestingly, so do many sceptics.
Bill Flowers was a sceptic once. A mountain of a man
with a measured manner of speaking and a torrent ofgreying hair, Bill is a member of the Tasmania-based
Thylacine Research Unit (TRU). The three-man group
aims to apply a scientific approach to evidence and
embraces technology such as night-vision gear, trail cam-
eras, listening devices and drones. It maintains a website
where the public can report sightings.
Bill is an artist, filmmaker, herpetologist and wildlife
carer with a particular interest in Tasmanian devils. The
other TRU members are Chris Coupland, a zoologist,
conservationist and filmmaker, and Warren Darragh, an
IT professional and former telecommunications officer
with the Australian Army.
Bill says the trio started out by investigating and
debunking myths about the tiger. All were initially scep-
tical about the animal’s survival, but then Bill had acouple of experiences that punctured his conviction. One
was hearing a mysterious animal call in prime thylacine
habitat while investigating a sighting report in 2015. The
other was seeing a plaster cast reportedly made in the 1980s
of a young thylacine’s footprint. In appearance it matched
almost exactly a sketch he’d made of a thylacine foot in
the TMAG.
If thylacines were still around in the 1980s, they could
have survived till the 21st century, Bill reasons. “That was
earth-shattering for me,” he says.
Not that he’s now a true believer. “I err on the side of
probable extinction. Most likely they’re extinct, but there’s
a chance they’re not.”Thylacine searcher Mike Williams adjusts a trail camera
on a 2015 Tasmania expedition. Although a mainlander, he’s
investigated sighting reports on the island for almost 20 years.May. June 85If thylacines were around in
the 1980s, they could have
survived till the 21
st
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