Creator Gould's Mammals of Australia (1845-1863)

Date 1863

Gould wrote of the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) in 1863 that: 'When the comparatively small island of Tasmania becomes more densely populated, and its primitive forests are intersected with roads from the eastern to the western coast, the numbers of this singular animal will speedily diminish, extermination will have its full sway, and it will then, like the Wolf in England and Scotland, be recorded as an animal of the past: although this will be a source of much regret, neither the shepherd nor the farmer can be blamed for wishing to rid the island of so troublesome a creature. A price is already put upon the head of the native Tiger...'..By 1936 the last known thylacine was dead. The species was officially declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 1982, following a lack of sightings in the wild for over 50 years.

Source: Smithsonian Library