I wish I could say that both myself (Buck) and Joan (my bride)saw '...the tail...' but, alas, in this tiger hunting business one is wildly fortunate to view what appears to be a Tasmanian Tiger. Let me explain.

Joan and I are in the bush as often as we can. We live 50 kms from the city of Launceston (about 70,000 people)and our property is surrounded by old growth forest. We live in a fingernail of rain forest...actually it is what is called a 'gallery rain forest' because we live towards the bottom of a large, forested hill. We receive about 50 inches (a metre and a half approx) and the rain soaks slowly down the hill. Hence, because we are on the morning side of the mountain, the rain is retained as moisture much longer than those on the north side.

About 5kms from where we live and in the general area, on a place called Ferny Hill Road, there have been about 8 to 10 sightings of the animal in the past two decades.

When we go tiger hunting we basically go late in the afternoon and finish as it is getting dark. We first of all look for kangaroos that suddenly get excited and are running madly for no apparent reason. Something is probably chasing or scaring them. That something could be a dog,a human, a car or 'something else'.

On this late afternoon...about four days ago...we were out for a ramble in the bush (Americans...we call the woods 'the bush').
We had our dog with us on a leash as we always have her in full control. Patch has a queer yodel which she uses only when we are in the bush on our tiger hunts. She never uses the sound at any other times except when she sees me or Joan leaving her presence. It is always a sound mixed with excitement and what sounds like fear. Of course we are alerted. On this day the wind was up and we were in a heavly bushed and forested area. Patch stopped and made her 'funny sound'. We stopped, I looked up to my right (Joan was looking elsewhere) and there, about 25 metres to my right and behind some tall tussocks a brown and somewhat golden tail flashed past me. It was NOT a kangaroo. When you live in the bush as we do and have for many years you learn that only a kangaroo tail looks like a kangaroo tail. Also kangaroos bound and thump away. One can always hear them as they bound off into the bush...and their bouncing tails have a rhythm.

Could it have been a dog? Because I did not see the whole animal the answer to this has to be, "Possibly". However, I have never seen a dog bound through the bush with its tail quite straight out as this one.

Did I see stripes? No.

Did it make any noise? No. The tail glided quite silently in front of me...almost as if it were disembodied and quickly floating away.

How long did I view this? Only about 3 seconds.

Conclusion: I have to say that what I saw was NOT a kangaroo. I do NOT think it was a dog. There are no other large animals in the bush that could possibly bear any semblance to what I saw.

Was it another sighting of a Tasmanian Tiger?
I do not know for sure. However, we will be visiting that area, with camera in hand, as often as we can.