Aussie Readers discussion

The Tasmanian tiger, or Tassie Tiger as Aussies refer to it, has always intrigued me. So much so, I’ve written a short story about this carnivorous marsupial considered by most to be extinct.

In The Last Tasmanian Tiger Charlie Truganini can’t believe his eyes when on a trip into Tasmania’s wilderness he sees a Thylacine cynocephalus – an animal better known as the Tasmanian tiger.

Charlie has a number of claims to fame – one of those being he’s a direct descendant of one Truganini, the woman considered to be the last full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanian and whose name he inherited. A close second to that is he’s the great-grandson of one Dingo Truganini, the tracker who helped capture the last known Tasmanian tiger.

It’s his admiration for his great-grandfather’s exploits that explains why Charlie has devoted his life to searching for the Tassie tiger, as he refers to it, or the thylacine, as scientific types insist on calling it, to determine one way or the other whether it still exists. He has always suspected it does despite having never sighted it nor even stumbled across its spoor in all his travels.

When Charlie sees a Tasmanian tiger with his own eyes, he realises he doesn’t want his tiger meeting the same fate as the last one. And so he makes a decision. A decision that will have life-and-death consequences.


THE LAST TASMANIAN TIGER is available via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Last-Tasmanian...


Footnote: This video footage of the last Tasmanian tiger, recorded in 1933, makes for interesting viewing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBpyA...

A weird and wonderful animal, this carnivorous marsupial is (or was) striped like a big cat, has (or had) the head of a wild dog and carries (or carried) its young in its pouch.

Not all Aussies believe the Tasmanian tiger is extinct. Reported sightings of the animal still come in occasionally – some of them very credible.

More info and photos at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine

Sounds interesting. I have been to Tassie a number of times and have no doubt that there have been sightings in the last 20-30 years.

Last I heard, the authorities were coming around to the notion that there is a remnant pocket and are thinking of searching it out.

Deborah wrote: "Sounds interesting. I have been to Tassie a number of times and have no doubt that there have been sightings in the last 20-30 years.

Last I heard, the authorities were coming around to the notion..."

I've never been to Tassie, Deborah, but I suspect the remote Southwest Wilderness region is the tiger's most likely domain if it still exists. Reminds me of NZ's rugged Fiordland region.

Thanks Lance :)