Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks to Dr Stephen Sleightholme and Cameron Campbell for their much valued encouragement, and for their gen­­- erous assistance with revisions to the text and with photographs.

Also to my literary agent, Tim Curnow, whose dogged per­se­verance eventually succeeded in locating a publisher for my manuscript; thank you most sincerely for your friendship and assistance and, above all, your professionalism, which never wavered.

Special thanks to the many old Tasmanian bushmen who over the years shared their inspiring stories of the thylacine with me. They were the true experts when it came to the Tasmanian tiger. And to my father, Ray, who by his example instilled in me a love of nature and the outdoors.

To the Director of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, my good friend Bill Bleathman, for his kind permission to reprint photos from the TMAG collection.

To those many people from all walks of life who have shared their thylacine sightings with me; they are from all points of the compass and each had a unique story worth telling.

And particularly I wish to thank the main players in my auto­biography: Elias Churchill, Old Bert, Deny King, Reg Trigg, David Fleay, and last but not least, the truly magnificent Tasmanian tiger, for without this protagonist, there would have been no story.