The last one died alone in a cage. It was 1936, a cold September night in Hobart, Tasmania. A thylacine—the creature we call the Tasmanian tiger—was locked out of its sleeping quarters at the Beaumaris Zoo. It died from exposure. Neglect. Just like that, a lineage that had survived for millions of years was snuffed out.
People usually want a simple answer. They want to point at one thing and say, "That's why." But when you ask why did the Tasmanian tiger become extinct, you’re actually looking at a messy, tragic collision of bad science, government-funded bounties, and a landscape that was changing faster than the animals could keep up with. It wasn’t just one mistake. It was a series of them.
Honestly, it’s a story about how humans can be incredibly efficient at destroying things they don't understand.
The Bounty That Broke the Species
If you were a sheep farmer in Tasmania in the late 1800s, you probably hated the thylacine. You’d never seen anything like it. It had the stripes of a tiger, the head of a wolf, and a pouch like a kangaroo. Because it looked like a predator, people assumed it was a monster.
The myth was that these "tigers" were bloodthirsty killers. People claimed they were slaughtering sheep by the thousands. Was it true? Not really. Modern research, including studies on jaw strength led by experts like Dr. Stephen Wroe, suggests the thylacine actually had pretty weak jaws. They likely hunted smaller prey—wallabies, bandicoots, birds. They weren't exactly built to take down a full-grown ewe.
But the fear was real.
In 1888, the Tasmanian government did something catastrophic. They introduced a bounty. One pound per adult head. That was a lot of money back then. Private companies like the Van Diemen’s Land Company had already been paying for dead thylacines, but the government’s involvement made it official business. Between 1888 and 1909, at least 2,184 bounties were paid out.
Imagine that.
The population was already small. It was an island, after all. When you start paying people to kill every single one they see, the math doesn't work out for the animal.
It Wasn't Just the Guns
While the hunting was the most direct cause, it wasn't the only thing going on. You can't just blame the guys with rifles.
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Tasmania was changing. The bush was being cleared for pasture. Habitats were being fragmented. When you break up the land, you isolate populations. You create these little "islands" within the island. This leads to inbreeding. When a species lacks genetic diversity, it becomes fragile. One bad sickness can wipe out an entire group because no one has the immune system to fight it off.
And that’s exactly what happened.
In the early 20th century, a mysterious "distemper-like" disease swept through the remaining thylacine population. We don't have a preserved virus to study under a microscope today, but historical records from trappers and naturalists at the time describe animals looking sickly and dying off in large numbers.
The Competition Nobody Considers
Then you have the dogs.
European settlers didn't just bring sheep; they brought domestic dogs. These dogs did two things. First, they competed for the same food. A feral dog is a highly efficient hunter. Second, they likely brought the diseases that hammered the thylacine. It was a pincer movement. On one side, humans were shooting them. On the other, dogs were taking their food and making them sick.
It’s kinda wild to think about how much we didn't know. By the time the government realized the thylacine was almost gone, it was way too late. They didn't grant the species protected status until July 1936.
Benjamin, the last thylacine, died two months later.
Genetic Bottlenecks and the Mainland Mystery
To really understand why did the Tasmanian tiger become extinct, you have to look further back than the 1900s. The thylacine used to live all across mainland Australia and even New Guinea. Thousands of years ago, it vanished from the mainland, leaving only the Tasmanian population.
Why?
Dingoes.
When dingoes arrived in Australia (likely brought by seafarers about 3,500 to 4,000 years ago), they were a massive upgrade in terms of predatory competition. Dingoes hunt in packs. They are smarter, faster, and more social than the thylacine, which was a solitary, somewhat "primitive" marsupial predator.
The thylacine couldn't compete. But dingoes never made it to Tasmania. The Bass Strait—the stretch of water between Tasmania and the mainland—protected them. For a while.
But this meant the thylacines in Tasmania were already starting from a "bottlenecked" population. They had low genetic diversity long before the first European ship ever hit the horizon. According to a 2017 study that sequenced the thylacine genome, the species had been in a long-term genetic decline for millennia. They were essentially the "living dead" even before the bounties started. They were a species on the edge, and we just pushed them off.
The Modern Obsession: Are They Really Gone?
Every few years, someone claims to have a grainy video or a blurry photo of a thylacine in the Tasmanian scrub. It's the "Loch Ness Monster" of Australia.
People want them to be alive. We feel a collective guilt about what happened. There have been thousands of reported sightings since 1936. Some are from credible people—rangers, locals who know the bush—but there hasn't been a single piece of hard evidence. No DNA. No fresh carcasses. No clear photos.
The Australian Museum and various tech startups are now looking at "de-extinction." Companies like Colossal Biosciences are trying to use CRISPR technology to bring the thylacine back. They want to take cells from a closely related marsupial, like the fat-tailed dunnart, and "edit" them using recovered thylacine DNA.
It sounds like science fiction. It is science fiction, for now.
But even if we can grow a thylacine in a lab, where does it go? The world that killed it is still here, just busier.
Why This Matters Today
The story of the Tasmanian tiger isn't just a history lesson. It's a blueprint for how extinction happens in real-time. It starts with a misunderstanding (the sheep-killing myth), moves to exploitation (the bounty), and is finished off by environmental pressure (habitat loss and disease).
If you want to help prevent this from happening to current species, there are specific things that actually work.
- Support Apex Predator Protection: Predators like wolves or sharks often get the same "monster" treatment the thylacine did. Supporting policies that protect them is crucial for ecosystem balance.
- Genetic Monitoring: Organizations like the Wild Genes program help monitor the genetic health of endangered species to prevent the kind of "bottleneck" that doomed the thylacine.
- Corridor Creation: Since habitat fragmentation was a silent killer for the tiger, supporting "wildlife corridors" that connect isolated patches of forest is one of the most effective ways to keep populations healthy.
We can't change what happened in 1936. We can't go back and open that cage door for Benjamin. But understanding the layers of why it happened—the politics, the biology, and the sheer bad luck—is the only way to make sure we don't repeat the same script with the animals we still have left.
The thylacine was unique. It was a beautiful, strange anomaly of evolution. We traded it for a few sheep and some peace of mind that we didn't even need. That’s the real tragedy.
Actionable Steps for Conservation Enthusiasts
If the story of the thylacine moves you, the best way to honor its memory is to focus on "the thylacines of today"—species that are currently on the brink.
- Research the Tasmanian Devil: They are currently facing a devastating facial tumor disease. Donating to the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program is a direct way to help the thylacine's closest living relatives.
- Citizen Science: Use apps like iNaturalist to record sightings of local wildlife. Accurate data helps scientists understand habitat ranges before they disappear.
- Advocate for Habitat Connectivity: Contact local representatives about land-use policies. Ensuring that forests aren't cut into tiny, isolated squares is the single best way to prevent the genetic decay that helped kill the thylacine.
The thylacine is gone, but the lessons it left behind are very much alive.