Why are tasmanian wolves almost extinct?

Answer 1

"Tasmanian wolf", along with "Tasmanian tiger", was a nickname for the Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus). Neither a wolf nor a tiger (thee are no tigers or wolves in Australia), this animal is not "almost extinct" - it has gone. The Thylacine became extinct during the 20th century. The last known specimen died in the Hobart Zoo on the 7th of September, 1936.

It was hunted to extinction after a bounty was placed on it as a livestock killer. The government paid one pound for every dead adult thylacine head, and ten shillings for every dead thylacine pup head. Also, wild dogs that settlers brought in competed with the thylacines, reducing the prey of the thylacine.

The thylacine and Tasmanian devil both became extinct in mainland Australia hundreds of years earlier, probably because they were in competition with dingoes once the Aborigines came.

There is disputed evidence that a very small number may yet still exist in the Tasmanian wilderness, but nobody has seen, photographed or trapped one.

A recent attempt was made to clone one, but failed due to the DNA being of insufficient quality.

Further, it has been suggested that, in the early part of the Twentieth Century an extremely virulent disease began to spread first through the wild then captive populations. Exactly what this disease was remains unknown but it was described as being similar to but distinct from canine distemper. Another theory points to the fact that, by the time the Thylacine was confined to the island of Tasmania, the remaining specimens did not have sufficient genetic diversity to sustain the population. A similar problem is currently affecting the Tasmanian devil, resulting in the spread of the fatal DFTD, or Devil Facial Tumour Disease.

Answer 2

Don't think there is such an animal.

There was a Tasmanian Tiger, but it is generally considered exctinct since the 1930s.