How Pictures Shaped the Thylacine

“Paper Tiger is an exciting new history of the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, that draws us closer to the animals who served as models for illustrations.

Carol Freeman takes the reader on a journey behind artists’ brushstrokes and photgraphers’ lenses into the world of science, printing processes, publishing entrepeneurs, circulating libraries and bounties. She reveals how inaccurate published images were … and how profoundly they affected attitudes toward living thylacines.

Written with sensitivity and an eye for detail, Paper Tiger uncovers forgotten drawings and lost photographs from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, telling a story full of mystery and revelations. It demonstrates how pictures and words have a vital influence on a species’ survival.

As the rate of extinctions escalates, we are also reminded that sympathetic pictures have the power to provide hope for endangered animals.”