Colorized 88-Year-Old Footage of an Extinct Tasmanian Tiger

Tasmanian tigers are extinct now and the species were last seen back in the 1930s. The only footage that is in this world of this animal is 88-year-old archival footage that stars the Tasmanian tiger in captivity.

There are only 100 seconds of footage and it’s all in black and white, until now. That footage has been taken by The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) of Australia and they ordered the restoration to commemorate National Threatened Species Day, September 7. The date marks the death of Benjamin, the last known Tasmanian tiger, who died in captivity in 1936.

Now we can see for the first time ever, we get to see how the Tasmanian tiger looks like before it went extinct!

Samuel François-Steininger from Composite Films performed the colorization and he shared in a statement:

“For the thylacine, I faced a different kind of challenge—and responsibility. I had to take care of the rare filmed footage and pay tribute to the last representative of a species, which disappeared 85 years ago. I care a lot about animals and discovered the story of the thylacine while I was living in Australia in 2012, and it really moved me.”