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Benjamin

Benjamin, the last captive Thylacine in 1933
Species	Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus)
Sex	Male
Died	7 September 1936 Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart, Tasmania
Known for	The last captive Thylacine

Benjamin (died 7 September 1936) was the last Thylacine (also known as the Tasmanian Tiger) to be captured. He was captured in the wild in 1933 and was kept in Beaumaris Zoo, Hobart, until he died of neglect in 1936.

The last captive thylacine, often referred to as Benjamin, lived at Hobart Zoo until its death on the night of September 6, 1936.^[1] Its source has long been disputed. Until recently, Elias Churchill was regularly quoted as being the captor, but there appears to be little evidence to support this claim. Two more recent candidates are far better placed evidentially as the probable source – the Kaine capture near Preolenna in 1931^[2] and the Delphin capture near Waratah in 1930.^[3] This thylacine features in the last known motion picture footage of a living specimen: 45 seconds of black-and-white footage showing the thylacine in its enclosure in a clip taken in 1933, by naturalist David Fleay.^[4] In the film footage, the thylacine is seen seated, walking around the perimeter of its enclosure, yawning, sniffing the air, scratching itself (in the same manner as a dog), and lying down. Fleay was bitten on the buttock whilst shooting the film.^[4] In 2021, a digitally colourised 80-second clip of Fleay's footage of Benjamin was released by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, to mark National Threatened Species Day. The digital colourisation process was completed by a Paris-based company, based on historic primary and secondary descriptions to ensure an as exact colour match as possible.^[5][6]

Frank Darby, who claimed to have been a keeper at Hobart Zoo, suggested Benjamin as having been the animal's pet name in a newspaper article of May 1968. No documentation exists to suggest that it ever had a pet name, and Alison Reid (de facto curator at the zoo) and Michael Sharland (publicist for the zoo) denied that Frank Darby had ever worked at the zoo or that the name Benjamin was ever used for the animal. Darby also appears to be the source for the claim that the last thylacine was a male.^[7] Robert Paddle was unable to uncover any records of any Frank Darby having been employed by Beaumaris/Hobart Zoo during the time that Reid or her father was in charge and noted several inconsistencies in the story Darby told during his interview in 1968.

The sex of the last captive thylacine has been a point of debate since its death at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Tasmania. In 2011, a detailed examination of a single frame from the motion film footage confirmed that the thylacine was male. When frame III is enlarged the scrotum can be seen; and by enhancing the frame, the outline of the individual testes is discernable.^[8]

The thylacine died on the night of 6–7 September 1936. It is believed to have died as the result of neglect—locked out of its sheltered sleeping quarters, it was exposed to a rare occurrence of extreme Tasmanian weather: extreme heat during the day and freezing temperatures at night.^[9]After the thylacine's death, the zoo expected that it would soon find a replacement,^[10] and "Benjamin"'s death was not reported on in the media at the time.^[11]

Although there had been a conservation movement pressing for the thylacine's protection since 1901, driven in part by the increasing difficulty in obtaining specimens for overseas collections, political difficulties prevented any form of protection coming into force until 1936. Official protection of the species by the Tasmanian government was introduced on 10 July 1936, 59 days before the last known specimen died in captivity.^[12]

• Paddle, Robert (2000). The Last Tasmanian Tiger: the History and Extinction of the Thylacine. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-53154-2.

Category:Individual wild animals