Colourised thylacine video

This footage was filmed in the mid-1930s and shows a thylacine, the last in captivity, in the hope that zoo on the Tasmania. He was called Benjamin, And for many years it was claimed that he had been mis-gendered because she was actually a female. However, this story has been proven to be erroneous, and as far as we know Benjamin was male and quite possibly not called Benjamin. This footage was painstakingly recurrent and I found it incredibly poignant.

 

As far as the truth about the name and agenda of the last Hobart Zoo thylacine, Richard Freeman only told me today. This, I think, underlines the fact that one is never too old to learn something new.

 

The thylacine is the creature on the logo, and has basically become a totem animal for the CFZ. We have carried out a string of expeditions to Tasmania in search of these creatures, and we intend to return very soon.

 

The colourisation process was very complicated:

 

”François-Steininger, said a lack of archived footage of the species meant experts relied on written descriptions of the tiger’s coat.

“I have worked on more than 100 archive-based documentary films and series, most of them very complex.

“For the thylacine, I faced a different kind of challenge and responsibility: I had to take care of the rare footage, and pay tribute to the last representative of a species, which disappeared 85 years ago.”