Is the TASMANIAN TIGER Still Alive- (THYLACINE) Pt.2
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00:00 That 80 or 90 years ago there would have been tigers here and they would have been hunting in this exact paddock
00:05 No way look at this. So that's the top of the skull. This might be a good place to look for tracks
00:12 What is that? There's claw marks at the front
00:15 [Music]
00:37 So I am currently by myself deep in the southwest of Tasmania
00:43 Following recent reports of the believed to be extinct Tasmanian tiger and over the next three days
00:48 I'm gonna attempt to track one down. If you don't know what a Tasmanian tiger is
00:52 It's an animal that used to thrive all across Australia, especially here in the forests of Tasmania
00:58 But after being hunted heavily throughout the 18 and 1900s the last Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in
01:05 1936 and they haven't been seen since but are they really gone? Last week
01:11 I interviewed a lady who saw a Tasmanian tiger in
01:14 1972 40 years after the last one was seen, okay
01:18 So we were living in this town called Maydena, which is between
01:24 Between your Norfolk and Strathgordon and Strathgordon is on the way you go past Lake Pitter
01:33 So it's deep into the southwest of Tassie and 50 years ago
01:38 We lived up in the scrub up on the hill in Maydena away from everybody. No houses. It was a
01:45 Winter was a flaming freezing all but snowing
01:50 Night wind was blowing it was howling and we had a little pup
01:56 golden lab and
01:59 This little pup just was going off its tree
02:03 literally freaking out and over the kitchen sink was a small window with the latch that you opened out
02:12 and
02:13 Bruce said, oh, what knows that dog barking at and I opened the window. I said, oh, that's a weird-looking
02:19 Dog out there. He said what do you mean a weird-looking dog? And I said, well, it's got this weird tail
02:27 its tail was straight and it had stripes on its back and
02:33 Bruce shot up like a and by the time Bruce got up this thing was sauntering
02:40 It was up a bit of a driveway was on a bit of a rise and the pit that in the bush is directly behind us
02:47 We're surrounded by bush and it just sauntered no
02:51 No fastness just sauntered back up our driveway and disappeared into the bush
02:57 It was a blizzard and we this this mountain range behind us
03:02 What I want to tell you is was called a tiger range. So how long ago was that?
03:08 51 years ago
03:10 so
03:12 Long after that one. It's long after it
03:15 It is long after it but there's such an elusive creature that they will just live in obscurity
03:22 And who knows how long?
03:25 You know, they're not saying yeah
03:27 I think the best case scenario would be there's a small population of these tigers living out in the forests of
03:33 Tasmania away from humans and that's why I've come here today
03:37 We're gonna be going on a bit of a solo expedition over the next three days and attempting to track down one of these thylacines
03:44 Wish me luck. It's gonna be a crazy adventure, but I've got a few things to help me out with this search
03:49 All right. Let me show you what I've bought in my backpack for this expedition. So we're camped about two kilometers away
03:55 I'm walking from camp every morning to get to some better ground
03:58 Probably the most important tool that I've brought with me to try and get one of these thylacines on camera
04:04 Is this right here and we've got a couple of them game camera traps motion activated
04:09 So you'll strap it to a tree just like that and when something walks in front of it
04:12 It will start filming and get whatever it is that walks in front of it on camera
04:16 I'm going to set these out in the middle of nowhere
04:19 I'm gonna walk as far as I can out into the bush and yeah
04:22 We'll see if we can get a Tasmanian tiger on camera with one of these I got a head torch
04:26 Gonna be using this after it gets dark. It's not only Tassie Tigers that I'm looking for out here
04:31 There's so many other cool animals that I'd love to get up close to the camera and nighttimes
04:35 Probably the best time to go look for them because a lot of them come out got a good pair of binoculars
04:39 These Tassie Tigers when they used to hunt they used to hunt in wide open fields and there's a lot of big mountain ranges around
04:46 Here. So what I thought I'd do is I'd find a place where there's a lot of game later on today
04:50 I'll climb up to one of the big hills sit there and wait because I'm not happy just getting a Tassie Tiger on camera
04:55 I want to get it hunting
04:57 Crazier things have happened and then of course, I've got all my camera gear and obviously my setup back at camp
05:03 Which I'm gonna be going back to later on
05:05 I know it's crazy
05:06 But you got to be open-minded when you're looking for something like this and I'm having so much fun
05:10 Putting myself into that mind frame of these thylacines could still exist out here in an area like this
05:16 I don't come down to Tasmania a lot
05:18 So I'm gonna put as much effort in to find one of these thylacines as I can. Oh, yeah, let's get this mission started
05:24 (Music)
05:26 No way
05:50 Look at this
05:53 animal bones
05:55 What is that?
05:58 So we've just come across
06:00 Some animal bones now. I was asking my mate Rob the other week
06:03 Why don't people ever find remains of Tasmanian Tigers? And this is what he said
06:07 Why aren't there any bones or remains found from these thylacines? I've never heard of anyone finding a skull
06:14 That's true. I mean, it's the same reason that they never found any of the convicts who tried to escape from Macquarie Harbor
06:21 You know because we've got the Tassie Devils and now they true beat the meat and then they'll even dissolve all the bones
06:27 They'll chew it all up. We saw firsthand in this video actually
06:31 Tasmanian Devils ripping apart a wallaby carcass and they left nothing left no bones
06:36 So if a Tasmanian Tiger did die out there, there's no way they're gonna let that go to waste
06:41 Yeah, so that's the top of the skull just like that
06:45 Now what I think this is is I think it's a wombat
06:48 Sadly, it's not a Tasmanian Tiger, but you can see the teeth just in there. That's a dead giveaway
06:54 It would have been a herbivore out here eating grass and we've seen how many wombats are out here in the paddock
06:59 But finding animal bones like this might mean that there's a chance that there are Tassie Tiger bones around here somewhere
07:04 Well, there would be but it's been a long time since they were in good numbers in this area
07:08 So finding them would be a different story still pretty cool though on the hunt for Tassie Tigers and we're finding some cool things
07:15 Let's keep going
07:18 (footsteps)
07:20 Now this area right here is
07:27 Prime country that these Tasmanian Tigers used to hunt in now
07:32 You can see there's a bit of a tree line behind me and what these Tigers would have been doing is sitting up on here and
07:37 Looking out here into this clear field looking for its prey, which would have been wallabies
07:44 Wombats and walking through this field right now. I'm finding so many wombat droppings
07:49 Which means if there is a small population of Tigers that live out here an area like this is good good hunting grounds
07:55 Good source of food and this area the southwest of Tassie was probably the place that these Tigers were least hunted here in Tasmania
08:03 Because before they were protected it was a very inaccessible place
08:06 It was easy to get Tigers from different locations sitting where I am right now
08:10 You can just imagine that 80 or 90 years ago
08:14 There would have been Tigers here and they would have been hunting in this exact paddock
08:18 Now when I was interviewing my mate Rob last week
08:24 He actually told me that over in WA about 20 or 30 years ago
08:28 There was a Tasmanian Tiger found fossilized inside a cave. You know that one that they found in the cave over in Western Australia
08:36 Thylacine. Yeah. Yeah, they found like it was only I might have been in the 80s or 90s
08:41 It was a full full thylacine that they found like mummified
08:44 Yeah corpse of a thylacine that had like I don't know it either fallen in there already gone off into this cave to die
08:51 So there could be some preserved around Tassie. Oh, there probably is in caves. Maybe caves. Maybe yeah
08:57 I don't see why not it'd be the best bet to find one preserved
09:03 It'd have to be because anywhere else like nature kind of takes its toll on the carcass and
09:08 It'd have to be out of reach for the devils, too. So it'd have to be a very rare spot. It's possible
09:14 Yeah, anything's possible man, like a lot of caves in Tassie and a lot of remote areas
09:18 There'd be so much stuff hidden up there that no one knows about in an area like this where there's so many mountains around us
09:25 So many caves that's where I reckon these Tigers might be living
09:28 Staying up in those caves during the day and sleeping and then after dark coming down here and going hunting
09:34 So about a kilometer over that way through this bush and a couple more grassy plains. There's a big mountain
09:41 So we're gonna hike up there
09:42 See if we can find any caves that these Tigers might be sleeping in before we head up there
09:46 I'm gonna find a place to set up these camera traps
09:49 [Music]
10:01 So we're gonna check this trail camera that we set up last night to see if we got anything on it six videos
10:09 So this trail camera went off six times throughout the night something went in front of it number one
10:17 What is that look at its tail
10:20 It's literally straight like the Tassie Tigers were come back into shot
10:25 It could be a quoll, but that's pretty cool. The first thing on the camera and yeah, there we go
10:29 It's a quoll just cruising around in front of the camera
10:32 That's still so cool to get one of these guys on camera out here in the wild
10:36 It would have been the biggest fluke ever if the first thing I got on the game camera was a Tassie Tiger
10:42 We got some more videos of the quoll just wandering around doing quoll like activities crazy
10:47 Pretty cool. Let's keep going
10:49 So the first part of this mission is to find some ground that people haven't been to in years preferably and I'm on the right track
11:00 I'm walking through some pretty crazy environment
11:02 It's going from grass plains to thick forest and this is exactly where I want to be setting up these camera traps
11:08 *Music*
11:18 This area looks really good this whole paths flattened out same as this area means animals are coming through here now
11:25 I love animals as you'd know and I love educating people about the ones that are alive because I think we need to focus on
11:33 Them they're the ones that need our help, but there's something so intriguing about this thylacine situation as sad as it is
11:40 They could still be out there since they went extinct
11:43 There's been thousands of sightings to this day of thylacines
11:47 Across the coast of Tasmania and there's places here in Tassie where people haven't actually explored in decades
11:54 Since these thylacines were still around. So how do we know that they're extinct? But either way
11:59 I'm still so
12:01 Happy that I'm out here on this land over here in Tassie and what a cool trip
12:06 It's been so far if you didn't see part one of this adventure
12:09 We went out and talked to a heap of people who know a lot more about these animals than I do
12:13 That's up on my channel
12:15 And if you like this and want to support me leave a like comment down below subscribe to the channel plenty more cool adventures coming soon
12:21 *Music*
12:29 This might be a good place
12:31 to look for tracks
12:33 Here we go wallaby wombat, what is that?
12:39 There's claw marks at the front just over here a little wombat burrow
12:47 I wonder if he's home one of the amazing things that happens when bushfires sweep through an area
12:51 Is all the animals will know that they're gonna die if they don't get to cover
12:55 So they'll all go down into a little wombat hole until the fires gone making a temporary agreement not to kill each other
13:01 There'll be snakes echidnas wombats all sorts of animals down there when the fires coming through
13:06 *Music*
13:08 *Music*
13:10 *Music*
13:12 *Music*
13:41 So we've just hiked up this massive mountain, and I'm just keeping my eyes out down there that area looks really nice
13:47 There's heaps of forest which pushes all the way back up into the mountain and up in that mountain there would be caves there would
13:54 Be places for these animals to take shelter, but it's really misty the weather is not on our side over the next few days
14:00 But I got my binoculars
14:02 *Music*
14:04 *Music*
14:06 There's a few wombats grazing down in the paddock down there. It's the late afternoon at the moment
14:11 This has been a really good day of prepping everything getting the camera trap set scouting some ground
14:16 So I think what I'm gonna do after this
14:19 I'm gonna head back down to camp set up for the night come back out here and see what animals we can find after dark
14:25 I think the plan for tomorrow
14:27 Is hike up into those mountains right there and see what's living up in that area
14:31 I might even set the trail cameras up in there tomorrow night
14:34 I don't think anyone would have been up in those mountains for a long period of time and it's got everything that a tiger needs
14:39 Let's head back to camp and go for a night walk though
14:41 *Music*
15:08 So we've just come for a walk out in this little field at night looking for some Tassie Tigers and pretty much whatever we can
15:14 Find and we found a little wombat right here. He doesn't seem to be too bothered by me
15:18 He's just grazing out in this paddock. But how cool is that little wombat?
15:23 Hey, mate
15:25 *Music*
15:27 *Music*
15:29 *Music*
15:31 *Music*
15:33 (dramatic music)
15:36 (water splashing)
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15:42 (water splashing)
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16:33 - All right, day two at the moment.
16:34 Pretty awesome night last night exploring,
16:36 finding those animals.
16:37 What we're gonna do now is we're heading
16:39 to the game camera traps.
16:40 The first camera trap is just over there.
16:43 I'm so keen.
16:44 Hopefully we've got a little thyler.
16:46 All right, we'll check it.
16:51 This thing got saturated last night.
16:59 (dramatic music)
17:03 (dramatic music)
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17:11 (dramatic music)
17:39 This is my last chance in this place to find a thylacine.
17:43 If I don't get one here, I'm not gonna be coming back.
17:46 Fingers crossed.
17:47 Let's see what's on the camera.
17:49 So throughout the few weeks that I've had here in Tasmania,
17:53 learning about these thylacines
17:55 and trying to track one down,
17:56 really made me question if I would put it in the video
17:59 if I did get one on camera.
18:00 And I don't think I would.
18:02 Definitely not just in a video like this anyways.
18:05 But this has been so amazing.
18:07 I'm so happy I got to spend some time here in Tasmania.
18:10 I wish I could stay longer, but I'll definitely be back.
18:13 I'm already talking to my mate Rob,
18:14 who's done some expeditions looking for these tigers.
18:17 And we're planning to go back to the Southwest
18:19 along the coast after winter
18:21 to try and track one of these guys down.
18:23 This has been a really cool two-part series though
18:26 of looking for the thylacine here in Tasmania.
18:28 I hope you enjoyed it.
18:29 Thank you so much for watching
18:31 and I'll see you legends next week in the next adventure.
18:34 Cheers.
18:35 Still have to check that last camera trap though.
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19:35 [Music]