Sunday, February 10, 2008

Tiger country may now be elsewhere


MICHAEL STEDMAN
February 10, 2008 12:00am

A TASMANIAN tiger sighting in Victoria
has reignited the theory that the species
may have been introduced to the
mainland before it became extinct in
this state.
Victorian farmer Harry Cook owns a property
bordering the Otway Ranges south of Melbourne.

Late last year he was with a mate inspecting
crop damage caused by rabbits when they
spotted three wedge-tailed eagles circling the paddock.

"They were circling over an animal -- we got
within 12 foot of it.

It was about the size of a large dog with
a very long tail that was sticking
straight up in the air as if it was fending
off the wedgies," Mr Cook said.

"There were white stripes on its chest and it
had a boofy head with round ears and the
side of the muzzle was white."

He copped a lot of flak for reporting the peculiar
sight, but not because no one believed him.

"Farmers around here told me I had broken the
code of silence -- that they had seen things too,
but as soon as it is reported all the townies come
with their rifles trying to shoot it."

Mr Cook is not alone in experiencing such a sighting.

A former engineer, who did not want to be named,
said he saw a dog-like animal in his headlights near
Torquay in May 2006.

He described it in minute detail, from its slender
body and fluid movements to the prison bar
"salt and pepper" coloured stripes on its flanks.

"I can guarantee you there is a feral animal of
some sort out there with short hair and stripes
on the side; if someone says that description
matches a tiger than I would say it is a tiger,"
he said.

Read more here






























Some pictures of the Thylacine: The color picture is of a stuffed animal.










This big mouthed beauty is known both as "Tasmanian Tiger" and "Tasmanian Wolf" being a marsupial the animal was neither.

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