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We know the myth is out there. But what about the truth? Over the past 70 years more than 4000 alleged sightings of the believed-to-be-extinct Tasmanian tiger have been reported. Yet not one solid shred of evidence - not a bone, a hair, much less a body - has ever been put forward to prove that the thylacine is the greatest escape artist in the animal kingdom.

If the tiger has somehow managed to cling to survival, proving its existence would be one of the greatest scientific stories of the century. A live thylacine would have many profound implications, including forcing a rethinking of our understanding about how endangered species can survive. So in this, our 125th year of publication, The Bulletin is prepared to help solve one of Australia?s most enduring mysteries.

We?re offering a total reward of $1.25m for conclusive proof of the tiger?s existence in the Tasmanian wild. And there's only one way to settle it. Our terms and conditions are strict and unbending (see page 20). A live, uninjured animal must be produced. All government regulations and provisions must be adhered to. A panel of eminent experts chosen by us will have the final say - along with conclusive DNA testing.

The reward is open until June 30. It?s a pretty safe bet that if a tiger is not found by then, we?ll know the truth is just a myth.

Garry Linnell
Editor-in-Chief
The Bulletin

By Anthony Hoy

Naarding, whose study of animals had taken him around the world, was conducting a survey of Latham?s snipe, a species of endangered migratory bird. What he saw that night is now regarded as the most credible sighting recorded of a species many believe has been extinct for more than 70 years ? the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger.

Naarding takes up the story. ?In order to study the snipe, I had to work at night. I was in a sleeping-bag in my Landcruiser, and was woken by rain at 2am. I was in the habit of intermittently shining a spotlight around. The beam fell on an animal in front of the vehicle, less than 10m away. Instead of risking movement by grabbing for a camera, I decided to register very carefully what I was seeing. The animal was about the size of a small alsatian, a very healthy male in prime condition. What set it apart from a dog, though, was a slightly sloping hindquarter, with a fairly thick tail being a straight continuation of the backline of the animal.

?It had 12 distinct stripes on its back, continuing onto its butt. At one point, it dropped its jaw, letting its tongue hang out. I could see its teeth, and its eyes were clearly visible. I knew perfectly well what I was seeing. As soon as I reached for the camera, it disappeared into the tea-tree undergrowth and scrub. I shot out of my sleeping-bag and went after it, looking for hair and footprints. I couldn?t find a trace. But I could recognise a very strong smell, reminding me very much of a hyena in Africa.?

The director of Tasmania?s National Parks at the time, Peter Morrow, ?decided in his wisdom to keep my sighting of the thylacine secret for two years?. When the news finally broke, it was accompanied by pandemonium. ?I was besieged by television crews, including four to five from Japan, and others from the United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand and South America.?

Government and private search parties combed the region, some using helicopters and others operating from snow camps in the highlands. But no further sightings were made. The tiger, as always, had escaped to its lair, a place many insist exists only in our imagination. Others beg to differ.

THE HUNTERS RETURN

They were all back there last month ? the true believers, the crazies, the obsessives and the just plain curious ? traipsing through the bush and making enough noise to wake the dead. Reports that a German tourist had digitally photographed a tiger ? the pictures are said to be dark, out of focus but showing some sort of striped animal ? had once again ignited world-wide interest. The New York Times had headed into the bush, and a BBC camera crew was about to arrive.

Not bad for an animal whose last surviving member was thought to have died in captivity in Hobart Zoo in September 1936. By then, a succession of bounties offered by the Tasmanian government had effectively wiped out the species. But since then, the thylacine has staged something of a comeback, becoming part of Australian mythology. There have been more than 4000 claimed sightings of the beast since it supposedly died out, and the average claims each year reported to authorities now number 150.

Is it out there? First, the experts.

Associate professor of zoology at the University of Tasmania, Randolph Rose, has said he dreams of seeing a thylacine, ?wrestling it to the ground and bringing it back to captivity?. But Rose, who in his 35 years in Tasmanian academia has fielded countless reports of thylacine sightings, is now convinced that his dream will go unfulfilled.

?The consensus among conservationists is that, usually, any animal with a population base of less than 1000 is headed for extinction within 60 years,? says Rose, whose collection includes a thylacine skull handed down to him by his predecessor, Professor T.T. Flynn, the father of swashbuckling actor Errol Flynn. ?Sixty years ago, there was only one thylacine that we know of, and that was in Hobart Zoo,? he says. ?This latest report of tiger photographs taken by a German tourist gets dodgier and dodgier by the moment. Take it from me, the tiger is gone. Otherwise, there would be conclusive evidence somewhere. Where?s the skull, fur, bones, hair ? or the dead body??

Dr David Pemberton, curator of zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, whose PhD thesis was on the thylacine, says that despite scientific thinking that 500 animals are required to sustain a population, ?the Florida panther is down to a dozen or so animals and, while it does have some inbreeding problems, is still ticking along. I?ll take a punt and say that, if we manage to find a thylacine in the scrub, it means that there are 50-plus animals out there.?

After all, animals can be notoriously elusive. The strange fish known as the coelacanth, with its ?proto-legs?, was thought to have died out along with the dinosaurs 700 million years ago until a specimen was dragged to the surface in a shark net off the south-east coast of South Africa in 1938. One of the most incredible tales of 20th-century zoology was the discovery of a new species of large mammal, the saola or Vu Quang ox, in the mountainous region of the Vietnamese-Laotian border in 1994.

THE VERIFICATION PROCESS

In addition to helping keep Tasmania fox-free and overseeing the management of the facial tumour disease affecting Tasmanian devils, wildlife biologist Nick Mooney has the unenviable task of investigating all ?sightings? of the tiger ? totalling 4000 since the mid-1930s, and averaging about 150 a year. It was Mooney who was first consulted late last month about the authenticity of digital photographic images purportedly taken by a German tourist while on a recent bushwalk in the state. On face value, Mooney says, the account of the sighting, and the two photographs submitted as proof, amount to one of the most convincing cases for the species? survival he has seen.

And Mooney has seen it all ? the mistakes, the hoaxes, the illusions and the plausible accounts of sightings. Take the televised thylacine expedition mounted by a French team, without notifying anyone, which carted live sheep into the south-west Tasmanian wilderness as a lure for tigers. Or the time Mooney struggled to keep a straight face as he traipsed behind a tiger hunter who had strapped wallaby pelts to his feet, so as not to leave a human scent ? only to stop periodically to have a smoke. He has had to contend with hordes of amateur photographers, all convinced their meaningless offerings somehow provided vital clues to the animal?s survival.

Mooney, a wildlife biologist with the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment, also deals with the con artists, such as the opportunist who painted stripes on a household pet?s back, or the smart alec who offered a zebra pelt on eBay as a tiger skin.

But occasionally ? just occasionally ? there are high-quality sightings that make it impossible for Mooney and his peers to absolutely rule out the possibility of the thylacine?s survival. However, having reconstructed all plausible tiger sightings reported to him, Mooney?s measurements have determined average errors of 200% in terms of distance, and 500% in time. ?Time slows in moments of excitement,? he says. ?This is where most accounts unravel, big time.?

Hoaxers aside, most people who report sightings end up believing they have seen a thylacine, and are themselves believable to the point they could pass a lie-detector test, according to Mooney. Others, having tabled a creditable report, then become utterly obsessed ? like the Tasmanian who has registered 99 thylacine sightings to date. Mooney has seen individuals bankrupted by the obsession, and families destroyed. He has coined his own term ? ?Lasseter?s Syndrome? ? for those who regard a tiger sighting as their ?main chance?. ?It is a blind optimism that something is, rather than a cynicism that something isn?t,? Mooney says. ?If something crosses the road, it?s not a case of ?I wonder what that was?? Rather, it is a case of ?that?s a thylacine!? It is a bit like a gold prospector?s blind faith, ?it has got to be there?.?

The psychological profiles of those who generally report sightings of the thylacine, according to Mooney?s studies, show that most have at some stage of their lives held prospecting licences and, politically, ?tend to vote along right-wing lines?. Says Mooney: ?The only way I can interpret that is a reluctance to admit there might be a bit of a problem, that is, ?things aren?t as bad as you greenies think?.?

Another predictable behavioural pattern among people reporting thylacine sightings comes towards the end of their debriefing, he says. ?At the point of conclusion, where we thank them for coming in, almost certainly they will say, ?It?s not the first one I?ve seen!? They are holding the floor, being treated as important, and they don?t want it to end.?

However, Mooney treats all reports on face value. ?I never try to embarrass people, or make fools of them. But the fact that I don?t pack the car immediately they ring can often be taken as ridicule. Obsessive characters get irate that someone in my position is not out there when they think the thylacine is there.?

Many reports have been made exempt from freedom-of-information guidelines, in order to protect the identity and privacy of informants. And Tasmanian government convention has it that any credible sightings of the thyalcine should be kept secret until the laborious scientific authentication process can take its course, and to prevent the legions of modern-day bounty hunters from mobilising for the next tiger shooting, trapping and poisoning campaign. Not to mention the risk of collateral damage to other native species. What, then, is the likelihood of the thylacine still being out there? ?Devils have become abundant in the last few years, which is evidence that the top predator ? the tiger ? is functionally extinct,? says Mooney.

During the Depression, when millions of snare knots were set for wallaby and possum pelts for the fur industry, not one thylacine was found, he says. ?When bounty payments for thylacines became rare ? when they were not worth hunting ? we could vaguely accept they had been killed beyond sustainable, that is, more than 25% of surviving animals were being killed each year. Surviving animals would have to have extraordinary resistance to the problems of inbreeding ... I?m open-minded. I certainly don?t believe they are all over the place. But if I had to make a call, I?d put money on them not being out there.?

?Out there? is country like the Devil?s Gullet in the Tasmania Wilderness World Heritage Area, a time-capsule sent from a past where primeval terrain remained untouched by human hands. The term ?moonscape? best describes the Central Plateau that stretches away beyond the Gullet?s bluffs, to what is now the world-renowned Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. If it?s true that the Tasmanian tiger survives to this day, the chances are that the last remnant of its protectorate lies within the reaches of this stunning vista.

The Mole Creek Hotel Tiger?s Lair Bar is where tourists come in search of the tiger. The favourite bar trick, publican Bob Hilton says, is to count every visible tiger image from your bar stool. ?The last census was 162-plus.? Stuffed Tiger toys glare down from every shelf. There are leadlight tigers in the windows, Tiger murals on the walls, and a merchandise display of tiger T-shirts, stubby-holders and trinkets. Bob?s partner, Denise, has a tiger tattooed below her right shoulder blade. The pub is also where Tasmania?s only known female tiger hunter, Trudy Richards ? with her trusty tiger-dog Bess ? holds court over a few beers every evening. She has seen the tiger, of course ? her last sighting in June 2002.

Retired landscape gardener Col Bailey, 67, is one of the True Believers, a self-confessed thylacine obsessive who carves out a living from perpetuating the myth. He has logged more than 300,000km, heading the search and ministering to the faithful. ?As we speak, there are 100 people out there looking,? says the operator of what he calls ?the Tasmanian Tiger Research Data Centre?. HarperCollins published his first book, Tiger Tales. A second book is near completion. And he is booked for a string of speaking engagements.

But Hans Naarding, whose sighting of a striped animal two decades ago was the highlight of ?a life of animal spotting?, remains bemused by the time and money people waste on tiger searches. He only recently returned home to Tasmania after sailing the south seas in his trimaran, in part to escape the never-ending speculation and queries over his claim. He says resources would be better applied to saving the Tasmanian devil, and helping migratory bird populations that are declining as a result of shrinking wetlands across Australia.

Could the thylacine still be out there? ?Sure,? Naarding says. ?I know the vast south-west wilderness of Tasmania so well. They could survive. By the same token, if this is the case, it will not be long before they do disappear completely.?

He says any discovery of surviving thylacines would be ?rather pointless?. ?How do you save a species from extinction? What could you do with it? If there are thylacines out there, they are better off right where they are.?