In July 2019, Australian authorities on the island of Tasmania received a report of a footprint spotted by an unnamed individual on a walk up to Sleeping Beauty Mountain in the southeast of the state.
“Wasn’t able to take a photo, however he googled it when he got home and believes it was a Tasmanian Tiger,” the report reads, according to the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE).
That same year, a government plant biologist saw what they believed to be a Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus), or thylacine, from 30 meters (100 feet) away in a remote area.
“Good description given, bounded into bush,” the report states.
In 2018, three cyclists said they witnessed a thylacine crossing the road in front of them.
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These are just three of more than 1,200 alleged thylacine sightings reported between 1910 and 2019 in Tasmania that have been collated and analyzed by Barry Brook, a mammal ecologist at the University of Tasmania, and colleagues to create the Tasmanian Thylacine Sighting Records Database, which they used to estimate an extinction date for the thylacine.
Read more: Mongabay
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