Newly discovered footage of thylacine shows animal not so fierce

Unearthed footage of a thylacine may be the last time the species was ever recorded on film – and shows that its fearsome reputation may be ill-deserved. WATCH HERE>>

NEWLY discovered footage of the thylacine has cast doubt on the animal’s fearsome reputation.

An old tourism film from 1935, long buried in the vaults of the National Film and Sound Archives in Canberra, contains roughly 20 seconds of rare footage of a live thylacine in Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo.

The footage postdates other recorded footage of the thylacine by two years.

In it, the captive Tasmanian tiger is seen pacing inside its enclosure at the zoo, apparently very placid despite noisy humans trying to provoke it.

“You can clearly see them trying to rile it up from outside the enclosure but it actually seems quite timid, even with the cameraman inside the enclosure,” thylacine researcher Branden Holmes said.

Still from newly discovered footage of the thylacine in Hobart's Beaumaris Zoo in 1935. It was part of a tourism film made by Sidney Cook in 1935. (National Film and Sound Archives)

“So what we can learn from this really short clip of film is that thylacines actually seemed to be quite timid, in contrast to their reputation for being ferocious sheep-killers.”

Mr Holmes and fellow researchers Mike Williams and Gareth Linnard, discovered the rare footage in a film called Tasmania the Wonderland, shot by filmmaker Sidney Cook as part of his tour of Tasmania in 1935.

The voice narrating the film says the Tasmanian tiger is a “dangerous opponent, though like the devil, is now very rare. Forced out of his natural habitat by the march of civilisation, this is the only one in captivity in the world.”

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That male thylacine, known as Benjamin, was also the last known live specimen and, a year after this footage was shot, he died, making this the last known footage of the animal.

The same three researchers also released more newly discovered footage in March, from the Tasmanian State Archives, a scant few seconds of the same creature in an old family film made during a trip to the Hobart zoo.

Mr Holmes and his colleagues are part of a group called Tasmanian Tiger Archives on Facebook, which helps researchers from around Australia to share information and leads.

They are currently trying to track down another lost film, referred to in a 1978 article in the Mercury, purportedly showing a thylacine cub.

“The thylacine was not well studied when it was alive, so these films are all we have now,” he said.

If you have information on the thylacine please contact the Tasmanian Tiger Archives on 0416 303 371.