Lake St. Claire and the Tasmanian Tiger

Photo of a photo of a Tasmanian Tiger

Lake St. Claire is part of a vast area known as Tasmania's World Heritage Area and part of the St. Claire-Cradle Mountain National Park.  Lake St. Claire is the deepest fresh water lake in Australia, measuring 547 feet deep and carved from glaciers thousands of years ago.  The Aboriginal people called the lake Leeaawuleena, meaning sleeping water.

The misty rain seemed to be following us.  We tried to take several hikes around the lake, but ended up cutting them short because of rain.  There was a small interpretive museum in the visitor's center, so we spent some time there, learning about the geology of the area.  We also learned about one of its more fascinating animals, the Tasmanian Tiger, also known as the thylacine or Thylacines cynocephalus:  Dog-headed, pouched dog.

The museum's large display explained that the Tasmanian Tiger was an animal unlike any other in the world and absolutely amazing.  Europeans thought it had the head of a wolf and the body of a tiger and named it the Tasmanian Tiger.  It was the largest carnivorous marsupial known.  The Tasmanian Tiger was a shy, reclusive, and mostly nocturnal animal.  Both male and female had a rear-facing pouch with females raising between one to four joeys at a time.  Adult thylacines weighed between 33 and 66 pounds.  Mostly scavengers of wallaby and kangaroo carrion, thylacines had the unique capability to open their jaws 120 degrees.

When Europeans arrived, they viewed Tasmanian Tigers as a serious threat to livestock.  It is reported that many of their claims were highly exaggerated.  Some stories actually said Tasmanian Tigers were vampire dogs and blood drinkers.  Although there were only 5,000 thylacines estimated to be in Tasmania, the government issued a bounty on these creatures.  Over 2,000 bounties were paid from 1888 to 1909, with an estimated 3,500 animals killed.

Their numbers were never great.   Under the bounty system, thylacine population plummeted.  The last bounty was paid in 1933.  In 1936, the last known thylacine, named Benjamin, died in captivity in the Hobart zoo.  Because his keeper failed to put the animal in his enclosure one cold night, Benjamin died of exposure.  He was considered the last of his species.

The worst part?  As bounties plummeted for lack of thylacines and knowing this animal was extremely unique, the government decided Tasmanian Tigers needed to be protected.  Benjamin died 56 days after that protection was granted.

The Lake St. Claire visitor's center museum, however, also listed many sightings of the Tasmanian Tiger since its extinction.  They asked, could the thylacine still exist?  Much of Tasmania's World Heritage Area is a dense, impenetrable  rainforest.  A small population may still survive there.  In fact, the thylacine has the most post-extinction sightings of any other animal on record.

We later spoke with a self-proclaimed "optimistic Saskwatch critic" from Tennessee, on sabbatical from his wanderings in the U.S. to visit his sister in Tasmania.  He claimed to have spoken with people who knew, for a fact, that thylacines still exists.  Because of concerns, however, that "the government will take their property and make it a thylacine reserve," they have not come forward.

My best hope is with a lady at a nearby visitor center.  She definitely thought the Tasmanian Tiger still exists.  She said, "But I hope they never find him.  He is too special to become a specimen again."  In my heart of hearts, I hope she's right.