THYLACINES ARE OUT THERE, IT`S JUST A MATTER OF WHERE!

The one good thing about not having anyone who makes any comments on Lost Treasures is that it gives me the opportunity to go beyond music and enter the deep subconscious to talk about some really way out there things that has about as much to do with music as I do with single women.

None in other words. And tonight, I`m going to talk about a lost treasure from the Australian animal kingdom, the long presumed extinct Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine. 

The last known Thylacine to exist, named `Benjamin` passed away at Hobart Zoo in 1933. No one can be sure if Benjamin was
a boy or a girl, because Tassie Tigers were one of only two marsupials where both sexes had a fluffy pouch, and with males, they had a scrotal pouch which protected their wee
wee from being damaged when chasing after things in the wild.

Thylacines were probably already extinct on the Australian mainland around the time of European settlement, but no one will ever know forsure. 

The reason why they continued to survive in Tasmania up until the early 20th century is because the dingo never made it to Tasmania, they only made it to the Australian mainland. 

Thylacines were shot en masse by Tassie farmers who didn`t want their chickens and sheep eaten, the Tasmanian government from 1888 to 1909 even payed a bounty price of 1 pound per head for a dead adult specimen and 10 shillings for "puppies". 

Obviously the politicians in Tasmania back then weren`t gay and members of the Green Party, or otherwise they would have been shooting at redneck farmers and not Tassie Tigers. 

Domestic dogs and disease probably also played a part in wiping them out in the 1920`s after the bounty on them had ended when it became more apparent that they were going to become extinct if the farmers did not cease shooting the striped
marsupial blighters. 

My guess, and I'm being completely serious now, is that the Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger is still out there somewhere, be it in the vast expanse of north-west Tasmania or in the even more remote south-west corner of Tasmania, like around Federation Peak or

somewhere really remote like that. 

They also are officially extinct in New Guinea, which obviously is an indication
that they once existed there, and there is certainly every chance that a wild mob of these furry critters exists somewhere in the remote jungle of Papua New Guinea or West
Papua, also known as Irian Jaya. 

Simply because there is still so many places on the island of New Guinea where no man has been to, except for the cast of Survivor of course.

There have been many rewards offered over the years for the capture of a live Thylacine, it almost seems as hard as capturing an alien to do it. 

And we`re not talking peanuts either, the magazine The Bulletin offered a reward of 1.25 million dollars in 2005 over a three month period for the safe capture of a living Thylacine, but no one ever came along with one and the offer was withdrawn. 

And Stewart Malcolm, a Tasmanian tour operator, offered a 1.75 million dollar reward for the capture of a live Thylacine,
and to my knowledge the reward is still on offer to this day, even though any reward would be illegal because trapping a Thylacine (even though they`re classed as
extinct, mmmm mmmm, only in Tassie folks) remains illegal. 

My gut feeling is that the Thylacine is just a lost treasure, not an extinct treasure. There has to be a few out there somewhere, like along the banks of the Franklin River, or in the foothills of Cradle Mountain, or like I
already said, somewhere uninhabited and off the map in the South-West National Park or in some gully along the Arthur River.

There has to be, I will walk down Queen St.

in Brisbane City naked if there isn`t one of these furry sly buggers out there somewhere waiting to be sprung.

If I had enough money to buy a torch instead of having to settle for a box of matches in the dark, then I would probably be game enough to go tiger hunting in Tasmania so I could get my hands on the 1.75 mil that Stew Malcolm is offering for a live catch. 

But knowing my luck, all I`ll end up finding in the dark down in Tassie is Bob Brown doing a crap behind a gum tree.