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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware this website contains images, voices and names of people who have died.

One of the last thylacines (silent)

Extract from Native Animals of Australia (1934) Note: NFSA research has shown that the last known footage of the thylacine is in the travelogue, Tasmania the Wonderland (1935).

Intertitles and image are used to show the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine. An intertitle states that the ‘Tasmanian Wolf (or Tiger) Thylacinus cynocephalus is extinct on the mainland and becoming very rare in Tasmania’. 

On 7 September 1936 the last known thylacine died at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart in Tasmania. The species had been given protected status just two months before. Around 5,000 thylacines were in Tasmania when Europeans settled there. But over-hunting combined with habitat destruction and introduced disease quickly led to the extinction of the species.

NFSA: 13127 Documentary (silent) courtesy National Film and Sound Archive

Activities

1. What does this short film clip show? Summarise what you see.
 

2. Does the film appear to have a main purpose or message? If so, what do you think it is?
 

3. Who made the film clip and when was it made? Use this information to try to work out why the film was made. Does this change what you think about the purpose of the film?