09 May 2000 Australia:
Tiger reports continue to tease
By Danny Rose
Backers of efforts to clone a dead Tasmanian tiger pup have been warned - don't write off the species as extinct just yet. Parks and Wildlife management officer Nick Mooney says tiger sightings keep pouring in. "It's not a rare occurrence to have someone make a fairly substantial credible report - but they are not confirmed," he said. "We've had plenty of reports - we get them monthly." Mr Mooney said the Thylacine remained on the state's threatened species list but he rated the likelihood of a living Tasmanian tiger as "very low". "The proponents of the cloning have been almost obsessive in stamping out any thought of a Thylacine actually [still] existing," he said. "It would be a very amusing [for one to be found], but not a very likely scenario." Mr Mooney said it was "slightly wishful thinking" but Tasmanian tigers could exist in very low numbers with a resistance to in-breeding.
There's one North-West municipality where this belief seems shared - even registering the name "Tasmanian Tiger Country." "You'd be a bit premature to write it off ... there are sightings in areas which aren't frequented very often," Waratah Wynyard Council community development officer Richard Muir Wilson said. He said the tiger cloning project would raise interest in the area. The council was also working with Tourism Tasmania to develop a "tiger trail" of local attractions and historic sites. "It's to capitalise on our links to the Tasmanian tiger in the past," Mr Muir Wilson said. The last tiger in captivity was trapped near Waratah in 1925, when Wynyard merchant James Harrison provided Thylacines to zoos around the world. "The tiger trail concept is to be a link between various attractions in the area," Mr Muir Wilson said. "We won't be saying `tiger crossing here - beware!' or anything like that."