section_path: Extinction/Searches and unconfirmed sightings
section_name: Searches and unconfirmed sightings
paragraph_text: Searches and unconfirmed sightings
  
  Between 1967 and 1973, zoologist Jeremy Griffith and dairy farmer James Malley conducted what is regarded as the most intensive search for thylacines ever carried out, including exhaustive surveys along Tasmania's west coast, installation of automatic camera stations, prompt investigations of claimed sightings, and in 1972 the creation of the Thylacine Expeditionary Research Team with Dr. Bob Brown, which concluded without finding any evidence of the thylacine's existence.
  
  The Department of Conservation and Land Management recorded 203 reports of sightings of the thylacine in Western Australia from 1936 to 1998. On the mainland, sightings are most frequently reported in Southern Victoria.
  
  According to the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, there have been eight unconfirmed thylacine sighting reports between 2016 and 2019, with the latest unconfirmed visual sighting on 25 February 2018.
  
  Since the disappearance and effective extinction of the thylacine, speculation and searches for a living specimen have become a topic of interest to some members of the cryptozoology subculture. The search for the animal has been the subject of books and articles, with many reported sightings that are largely regarded as dubious.
  
  A 2023 study published by Brook et al. compiles many of the alleged sightings of thylacines in Tasmania throughout the 20th century and claims that, contrary to beliefs that the thylacine went extinct in the 1930s, the Tasmanian thylacine may have actually lasted throughout the 20th century, with a window of extinction between the 1980s and the present day and the likely extinction date being between the late 1990s and early 2000s.
  
  In 1983, the American media mogul Ted Turner offered a $100,000 reward for proof of the continued existence of the thylacine. In March 2005, Australian news magazine The Bulletin, as part of its 125th anniversary celebrations, offered a $1.25 million reward for the safe capture of a live thylacine. When the offer closed at the end of June 2005, no one had produced any evidence of the animal's existence. An offer of $1.75 million has subsequently been offered by a Tasmanian tour operator, Stewart Malcolm.