Description
Book SynopsisIs it still out there? People claim to keep seeing it still.
Once the world's largest marsupial predator, the Tasmanian tiger roamed the Australian mainland. Then confined to Tasmania for thousands of years, it was deliberately hunted down by settlers through fear, ignorance and greed. But was it a savage sheep killer or a shy and fussy nocturnal feeder? Did the last tiger die in a Hobart zoo in 1936, or did a few survive in the wild? And did it really drink its victims' blood?
A number of Australian species have miraculously reappeared after being labelled as extinct. Perhaps the tiger is still with us. And if it's not, can it really be brought back by cloning and returned to the wild?
'Sweeps us along with wonderful writing as we meet a truly incredible animal that became the centrepiece in an ecological tragedy. Anyone interested in nature and the conservation of the diversity of life should read this story.' -
Professor John Seidensticker, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Table of ContentsPreface to the second editionPreface to the first edition
Acknowledgements
1 What's in a name?
2 In the beginning: evolution
3 At the end: extinction
4 'Pathetically little is known'
5 A rugged and determined front
6 Before the fall: Lutruwita
7 A land in need of taming
8 Tall tales, tiger men and bounties
9 Capturing tigers by their tales
10 'Them bloody useless things' 1888-1930
11 A bad finish: 7 September 1936
12 A lost object of awe
13 We wake up too late
14 The tiger in commerce and art
15 Cloning
16 Sightings and the science of survival
Notes
Select bibliography
Index
